Monday, September 1, 2008

No More Bounce

The Democrats convention and post-convention bounce, such as it was, is over. Sarah Palin's selection as the Republican vice presidential candidate appears to have already created a minor bounce of its own, and this is before the Republican convention gets underway in earnest.

Perhaps I should say in gustav in deference to the Norwegian-inspired tropical hurricane now rampaging through Louisiana. The hurricane will keep the Republicans off of the TV screens for another 24 hours or so and in the end the whole show may be limited to the nominees getting annointed and giving their acceptance speeches. The good news for the Republicans is that the President and his Vice side-kick had to run off to the Gulf rather than be made to feel uncomfortable in St. Paul. This turn of events will eliminate the need by the Republicans to try to defend the Bush presidency in any way during the convention and it may be that George Bush will be asked to sit quietly in the White House over the next 60 days or so.

Oh, yes, getting back to the post-bounce. My model suggests that Barack Obama's lead shrank by 0.3 percentage points over the past 24 hours:

Obama's lead in the Electoral College has dropped back to 52 electoral votes:

The following table shows, according to my model, the state of the election in eight states where the margin held by either candidate is less than 4 percentage points:

Obama's lead appears to be based on extremely narrow margins in three states.

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