June 5, 2008
The Obama Bounce
A number of commentators, myself included, had predicted that when Obama finally secured the nomination he would get a bounce in the polls.
So far, two days in (and realistically, a full month in):
Of course, this doesn’t mean that as Bambi consolidates his base, that he won’t see slow improvement. But the immediate bounce to a ten-point lead that some of us expected doesn’t appear to be materializing just yet.
Watch, now there will be a huge bounce tomorrow . . .
Incidentally, we noticed in the primaries that in the Appalachian states (OH, PA, WV, etc.) Obama was the WYSIWYG candidate. In other words, he rarely performed better than his final polling. I wonder if that will hold true for those states in the general election. Maybe, maybe not.
http://race42008.com/2008/06/05/the-obama-bounce/trackback/
June 5th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
It will come after Sen. Clinton concedes.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I don’t understand why McCain can’t cross 50% so long after being the nominee!?!?!
June 5th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
1. Why? It’s already plain that she has lost, and it has been widely reported that she is conceding on Saturday. I agree that that event would cause even more of a bounce for him, but one would expect at least some movement toward him over the last month as his nomination became increasingly inevitable. I’m not certain the bounce is coming.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
2. At this point in 2004, after four years of being PRESIDENT, Bush was averaging about 43% in the polls. And running behind Kerry, as he would for most of July and August.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
If McCain is still essentially tied by the end of June, he’ll be about as well positioned for the general as possible, given the macro dissatisfaction with his party.
The general will essentially be a referendum on Obama. If he passes the CinC credibility test, he’ll be elected. If he doesn’t, McCain will. Everything else will be background noise.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Obama will get no bounce. He is as high now as he will go.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Here’s a thought…maybe Obama has ALREADY received his bounce.
As you said, most people have known that Obama would secure the nomination for weeks, if not months. This is not exactly “breaking news.”
Moreover, unlike Kerry, whose favorable headlines kept reinforcing themselves by racking up victory after victory, Obama limped to the finish line, losing half the states to Clinton (sometimes by significant margins) even after it was apparent he could not be caught.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I think the true measure of Obama’s strength will be his post-convention bounce. Should be a 10-12 point jump, if he pulls a Kerry and gets little to no bounce in August then we’ll know where his electoral ceiling is, im guessing 48-49% on a good day.
#5, if the election is a referendum on Obama, McCain stands a better than average chance of winning. If its on Bush, then it’s Obama’s election to lose.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Obama will almost certainly get a terrific convention boost, since conventions hang a great deal on speeches, and no doubt he’ll have a doozy prepared there. But, with the Republican convention just one week later, I doubt it’ll last.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
#8 - I think BHO will TRY to make it a referendum on Bush, but in my opinion, midterm elections are referendum on incumbents. Presidential elections are referendums on the future. If BHO passes the credibility test, he wins.
And he might - in 1992 Republicans thought that Bill Clinton could never pass that test, but he did with flying colors. It helped that there were no military threats against us at the time, of course…
June 5th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I’m sure he will, but I just dont see either candidate polling much higher than 53-54% at any point between now and november.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
The McCain camp is reporting some solid fund raising numbers.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/05/1117640.aspx
June 5th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
“In 1992 Republicans thought that Bill Clinton could never pass that test, but he did with flying colors.”
I don’t know about the “flying colors” part. He got 43% of the vote, and might have lost if not for a certain gnome getting 19% of the vote.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I was one (posted on race42008) that predicted a bounce for Obama, based on historical fact.
Maybe Obama has already been defined? Rezko, Wright, extreme Liberal polcies, etc….maybe McCain has been able to do it without campaign commencials? Maybe the pollsters were wrong and the “bitterness” remark did have an impact?
For McCain, maybe all the hard hits he has taken from Conservatives has actually caused the reverse effect on the “Bush III” Democratic argument?
June 5th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
#13, you beat me to it.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
No Perot. No President Clinton.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Obama hasn’t had a bounce since the first part of March. He sort of went flat after the Wright video. Dennis Prager said today that the historical moment of nominating the first black candidate will last about a week and then it will be no big deal and I agree. His bounce opportunities are dwindling by the day because he is still being vetted. Only the democrats could screw this up.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
McCain selecting Alaska Gov Sarah Palin as Veep would give him more than a bump, it would give McCain a swell all the way to November.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I don’t get the historic moment of nominating a black guy.
Doesn’t it kind of belittle Obama’s nomination to boil it all down to:
“Black man wins Democratic nomination”
Isn’t there something more significant about Obama than the fact he’s half-black.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Actually in 1996 Perot captured %8.4 of the vote as , which was approx. a little more than the difference between Dole and Clinton’s margin.
I voted for Perot in 92 over the Bush tax flip, and I have regretted it every day since, that is whay I would have supported any of the GOP candidates this year. I learned my lesson.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
econ grad stud is correct.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
#19 is correct, there is nothing else special about Obama. That is the problem just about the entire country is realizing.
What upsets me the most is the Liberal columnists who have been saying how America is Prejudice and may not vote for Obama. That upsets me.
Jindal won in the deep south, and the two leading candidates for the GOP nomination this year were, 1) a physically disabled war vet, 2)A Bishop from the LDS church.
Makes me proud to be a Republican. we seem to care less about someone’s race, religion or sex.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
#22 While I agree with #19, its absurd to say there is nothing special about a minority who has captured the nomination of a major party for the first time in the history of western civilization. Today I decided to start reading the actual Lincoln-Douglas debates, which took place only 150 years ago, and the first debate concerned the status of slaves. Lincoln argued that blacks “were certainly not his equal in color” and likely not in physical or intellectual capacity. This is a big deal.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Here is an example of why Obama’s nomination is a big deal in terms of the election. I just turned my tv to the local news and Obama’s rally in Virginia is being carried live on all three networks here.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
#23, I said, “there is nothing else special about Obama”. But a man of color winning is a huge deal.
He has no stories to tell us? FDR, Truman, Ike, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, they all had accomplishments and history. What the heck is Obama going to talk about for 5 months? The Presidential elections are about the individual, not the party or issues. How can we get to know a guy, if he best stories are about his community activism, or “white” mother, or living in Indonesia or travelling to Pakistan? He needs to tell me something compelling, so I know who he is?
I’ll be honest, the most interesting thing about him, is that the 24 year old founder of Facebook is a senior member of his campaign and was a big part of organizing the caucus elections. That, I find interesting.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
McCain has many compelling “American” stories. I wonder what it was like not being able to play catch with your son’s because of the war injuries? That is what I think about when I see him wave to a crowds.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
McCain has many compelling “American” stories. I wonder what it was like not being able to play catch with your son’s because of the war injuries? That is what I think about when I see him wave to crowds.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
McCain has many compelling “American” stories. I wonder what it was like not being able to play catch with your son’s because of the war injuries? That is what I think about when I see him wave to crowds.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Sorry, my keyboard locked.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Let me put it this way.
If I was the half white child of an American man and a Nigerian woman, and I grew up to be nominated for a major Nigerian party’s nomination, I wouldn’t want the main focus to be:
“(half) White man is nominated to be President of Nigeria”
I think the media is doing Obama a disservice by turning him into a “race moment” and not a man.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I agree EGS, but is it not inevitable given our history and the media’s obsession with race/gender that they would focus on race?
Bushboy - I also found the facebook guy’s presence in the Obama campaign interesting.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
#31, I think they’re overdoing it. On MSNBC they nearly had a 30 minute blck talking about nothing except “gee whiz, Democrats have nominated a black man. What a surprise.”
We kind of saw this coming a while ago.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Again, I agree. And cable has a multiplier effect because they repeat the same storylines all day and sometimes for multiple days. Very little original thought, partly because people like Chris Matthews and Lou Dobbs grew up at a different time than at least I did. I always attended integrated schools and played on integrated sports teams. I believe that is one reason why Fox has not obsessed about it - many of the anchors are simply younger.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
When I first met my wife, I noticed an odd thing she did.
She’d tell me about a funny conversation she had with a man in the check-out of the supermarket. She’d off hand mention he was black. I noticed my wife always mentioned the race of a non-white person, when she mentioned someone I didn’t already know.
I guess it’s a cultural thing.