The Obama campaign expected a huge bump in the polls following his “rock star” appearance in Denver less than two weeks ago – that expectation landed in a thud after the announcement of Gov. Sarah Palin the day after his speech and last week’s GOP convention.
According to the most recent USA Today/Gallup Poll the only campaign surging is John McCain’s.
McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by 50%-46% among registered voters.
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McCain leads Obama by 54%-44% among those seen as most likely to vote.
Quite a turnaround from expectations.
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. 
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McCain’s timing on Palin was excellent, it certainly sucked the attention away from the Dem convention and deflated any convention bounce they would have otherwise gotten.
There tends to be a lot of variation if i recall in those 3-day polls, i’ll be curious to see if the bounce lasts any sustained amount of time.
JH – just curious and I’m not trying to pry, but exactly how many of those 3-day polls have you commissioned for political candidates? What experience on variation are you recalling? A three day poll is probably the best actually because while a poll is merely a snapshot of voter sentiment, at least the lens is open for three days and not two or one. There is less room for timing a poll to get a pre-determined answer in this format.
NJR, thats sounds logical. By stretching a polls period, you could somewhat counteract the effect of daily fluctuations.
However, I don’t have to have acted in an Uwe Boll movie to tell you they suck, nor do you have to commission a poll to see some rough results. No, I am not nor have i ever claimed to be a pollster or a savant on the subject. But i have dug through some of the raw poll summaries available (from electoral-vote.com and elsewhere), and IIRC the USA Today/Gallup poll is a 3 day poll, and i also seem to remember seeing that poll bounce around a little. If I’m wrong please feel free to correct me.