Speaking Politics word of the week: bounce
Bounce:聽A presidential candidate鈥檚 post-convention rise 鈥� generally temporary 鈥� in polls.
Like quite a few other political words 鈥� 鈥渂orked鈥� and 鈥渟herpa鈥� come readily to mind 鈥� 鈥渂ounce鈥� is popular because it鈥檚 short, vivid, and fun to say. It already has frequently worked its way into coverage of and to a far lesser extent,
Polling expert Nate Silver has that the bounce 鈥渂egins to manifest itself in earnest as of about the third day of the convention.鈥� After that, he said, 鈥渢he bounce accelerates quickly, peaking approximately 6-7 days from the start of the convention 鈥� that is, the weekend afterward, if the convention runs from Monday through Thursday. It then dissipates in a roughly linear fashion over the next 3-4 weeks.鈥�
The late language guru William Safire traced the phrase鈥檚 origin to 1980, when Jody Powell, who was President Jimmy Carter鈥檚 spokesman, the 10-percentage-point jump after that year鈥檚 Democratic event as 鈥渢he post-convention bounce we hoped for.鈥� The bounce, obviously, did not last, with Mr. Carter losing in the fall to Ronald Reagan.
The University of California, Santa Barbara鈥檚 American Presidency Project has every post-convention bounce since 1964. Bill Clinton had the biggest overall in 1992, when he left the Democratic National Convention with a 16 percentage point surge in polls.
Mr. Clinton was the beneficiary of a that year in which he closed his acceptance speech with the now-iconic phrase 鈥淚 still believe in a place called Hope.鈥� Skeptics scoffed, calling it momentary, but it lasted 鈥� Clinton ended up never trailing President George H.W. Bush.
Reagan in 1980 and George W. Bush in 2000 had the largest GOP bounces, with eight percentage points each. Barack Obama鈥檚 bounces were smaller 鈥� four percentage points in 2008 and two percentage points four years later. (The poll noted that the margin of error on the latter was plus or minus two percentage points, thus rendering the event bounce-less).
The candidates who didn鈥檛 bounce: Democrats George McGovern in 1972 (his post-convention polls didn鈥檛 move) and John Kerry in 2004 (he dropped one percentage point) as well as Republican Mitt Romney four years ago (he also dipped one percentage point). Needless to say, none of them ended up becoming president.
Chuck McCutcheon writes his 鈥淪peaking Politics鈥� blog exclusively for Politics Voices.
Interested in decoding what candidates are saying? Chuck McCutcheon and David Mark鈥檚 latest book, 鈥淒oubletalk: The Language, Code, and Jargon of a Presidential Election,鈥� is
