The ephemeral convention bounces


During every presidential election season, people look eagerly to see the effects of each party’s convention on the polls. Since the conventions are highly choreographed to show the candidate in the best light, that party candidate’s poll numbers usually rise in the immediate wake of the convention by about 3-4%.

I’ve never quite seen the point of the obsession with these so-called ‘convention bounces’ since the bounce for each party doesn’t seem to last that long and would cancel each other out anyway. This year, Donald Trump was on average 3.2 points behind Hillary Clinton on July 17, the eve of the Republican convention, and briefly took a lead of 1.1 points in the polls eight days later, but lost that lead very soon after, mirroring what happened with McCain-Palin in 2008. After quickly losing that lead in 2008, the Republicans never regained it.

Seth Meyers gave what I thought was a pretty nice summary of the last night of the Democratic convention.

Samantha Bee also weighed in and contrasted the two conventions.

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