Dissecting the Bounce
There's no question at this point that John McCain has received a significant bump in the polls from this time last week. The Gallup daily tracking poll has gone from +8 Obama to +5 McCain, a swing of 13 points in one week, and understandably, many Democrats are starting to panic.
I confess that I'm not immune to this feeling. Being a Democrat these days is a lot like being a Red Sox fan prior to 2004. No matter how good your team is, no matter how big a lead you have, you always feel like the other guys are going to come back and win it. There would come a point in every season and in every playoff series when the Yanks made their move and you got that feeling in the pit of your stomach, that feeling that evil was going to triumph over good yet again. And, on the flip side, Yankee fans, having been spoiled by success (as well as much bigger budget than any other team) were absolutely confident they would prevail, even when things looked bad for them.
But as 2004 proved, sometimes the Yankees lose, even when they look to have everything wrapped up. Which is I guess a long way of saying that it's too early to panic. Remember, as of one week ago, several polls showed Obama at 50% or higher. Those voters are all still gettable; they're all folks who are open to the idea of voting for Obama.
That said, McCain has enjoyed a pretty significant bounce over the last week. The key question now is whether that shift represents a fleeting convention bounce or a more permanent change in the dynamic of the race. The question for pollsters (and I'm sure the Obama campaign's internal pollsters are working overtime on this) is why the shift occurred. In other words, who are the people who shifted from Obama to McCain over the last week and why did they do so. Did they switch because they remembered how much they liked John McCain? Did they switch because they really like Sarah Palin? Or did they switch because GOP attacks raised doubts in their minds about Obama?
Answering these questions will be key to developing a strategy to win these voters back. And there's still plenty of time to do so.
I confess that I'm not immune to this feeling. Being a Democrat these days is a lot like being a Red Sox fan prior to 2004. No matter how good your team is, no matter how big a lead you have, you always feel like the other guys are going to come back and win it. There would come a point in every season and in every playoff series when the Yanks made their move and you got that feeling in the pit of your stomach, that feeling that evil was going to triumph over good yet again. And, on the flip side, Yankee fans, having been spoiled by success (as well as much bigger budget than any other team) were absolutely confident they would prevail, even when things looked bad for them.
But as 2004 proved, sometimes the Yankees lose, even when they look to have everything wrapped up. Which is I guess a long way of saying that it's too early to panic. Remember, as of one week ago, several polls showed Obama at 50% or higher. Those voters are all still gettable; they're all folks who are open to the idea of voting for Obama.
That said, McCain has enjoyed a pretty significant bounce over the last week. The key question now is whether that shift represents a fleeting convention bounce or a more permanent change in the dynamic of the race. The question for pollsters (and I'm sure the Obama campaign's internal pollsters are working overtime on this) is why the shift occurred. In other words, who are the people who shifted from Obama to McCain over the last week and why did they do so. Did they switch because they remembered how much they liked John McCain? Did they switch because they really like Sarah Palin? Or did they switch because GOP attacks raised doubts in their minds about Obama?
Answering these questions will be key to developing a strategy to win these voters back. And there's still plenty of time to do so.
posted by A.L. at 1:13 PM
3 Comments:
Much more interesting than the poll numbers is the response on Intrade, where Obama held a stable 60% to 40% probability of victory until the last couple of days. This morning, it was briefly at 51.5% to 48.5%, although that has settled back to approx. 55% to 45%. Of course, it's possible that Intrade has become politicized since the last election cycle, but it has a pretty good track record as a prediction tool. I'd guess that it removes most of the knee-jerk sentiment that you'd get in raw tracking polls.
I'm addicted to the Intrade "time and sales" charts the last few days. The volume for 2008.PRES.OBAMA is rather low so I wouldn't read too much into it.
"But as 2004 proved, sometimes the Yankees lose..."
Bad marker. The only thing I lost in 2004 was faith in the majority of my coutrymen - when "we" re-elected Bush. So it was definitely a "Yankee win" in 2004.
2006 slight recovery in faith. Looks like it is all on the line again. Are we really a nation of lie-buying buffoons? We'll see in November. COME ON America...
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