On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 3:13 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > Nate Silver ( > http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/aug-31-tv-ratings-may-be-leading-indicator-of-convention-bounce/) > has an interesting article on data he compiled in a regression analysis of > TV ratings (share of American households that were tuned into the > convention during prime-time) and the convention bounces enjoyed by the > challenging candidate (the one whose party is not currently in the White > House). He finds that 47% of the variance in bounces is predicted by TV > ratings (bad news for Romney, the ratings were down this week). > > More interestingly to me, Silver's data shows that the three smallest > challenger bounces since 1968 have been in the last three election cycles > (2008, 2004 and 1998) - and four of the last five in the last 4 cycles (the > exception was McGovern, who in 1972 got a smaller bounce than Dole in 1996 > - this on McGovern's way to one of the biggest wipeouts in American > political history). (SNIP) > > BTW - Nate is predicting a 4% bounce for Romney, which would be higher > than Obama and Kerry, but lower than Bush and Dole. We should know the > actual bounce on Monday, but Saturday and Sunday the picture will be > starting to form. >
So now the numbers are in: The Democrats outdrew the Republicans on each of the three nights (not all of the numbers are in the cited CBS article, but I believe the blues out drew the reds by 15% to 17% each night. Obama was significantly below his numbers from 4 years ago, but I am sure that is typical (second acceptance speech vs first), not to mention the special circumstances ( http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57508819/obama-beats-romney-in-nielsen-tv-ratings-of-conventions/ ). Perhaps most surprisingly, the Democrats, behind Uncle Bill, out drew the first night of NFL on NBC on Wednesday night (I thought for sure the NFL, behind a NYC team, would crush the convention): http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/2012/09/06/democratic-convention-beats-football-ratings/SuSijt4JFpNemn0SeAKaOL/story.html We will see by Monday if these higher ratings translate into a bigger bounce - Nate is reporting that the early returns do project out to a 5 point bounce (compared to around a 3 point bounce for Romney), but emphasizes it is still way too soon to tell. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/sept-7-polls-find-hints-of-obama-convention-bounce/ Also of course the mediocre jobs report this morning took away a lot of the afterglow for Obama on the morning news shows, which is probably where a lot of Americans get their sense of what happened at the convention, so that might eat away at the eventual bounce. The Conventions historically have been the single biggest influence on polling numbers in presidential elections - bigger than the debates or TV ads. I forget the exact formulation, but it is something like no candidate in the post war era has won a US presidential election if they are behind in the polls 2 weeks after the last convention (once the polls have stabilized again). Romney was behind 1-2 points before the Republican Convention, so if he just breaks even or worse after the Convention season, he will be bummed. OTOH, a major event like the crash of the stock market and collapse of the financial industry 4 years ago after the conventions probably increased Obama's final margin by a point or two, so if Romney can keep it close it is plausible that some major event, negative for the President, might make the difference for him. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
