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| | Rasmussen polling indicated that Romney received a "bounce" (improvement in his poll numbers) due to the Republican National Convention the prior week, including Romney's acceptance speech. | | Rasmussen polling indicated that Romney received a "bounce" (improvement in his poll numbers) due to the Republican National Convention the prior week, including Romney's acceptance speech. |
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| | + | Does that mean that Romney will win the election? Not at all. It's customary for presidential candidates to receive a "bounce" in the polls after their political party's national convention. Indeed, national conventions by political parties are staged events designed to boost the popularity of the candidate receiving the nomination. Nearly everything at the convention is scripted to make the party and the candidate as good as possible. |
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| | + | Also, Rasmussen polling typically reports more public support for the Republican candidate than polls by other groups show. Polls by other groups show Obama to have a slight lead over Romney. |
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| | == Romney's Acceptance Speech == | | == Romney's Acceptance Speech == |
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| | + | Polls are surveys of voters, which provide details about '''''which groups''''' support a candidate and which ones do not. In most elections, there is a "gender gap" between men and women, such that men tend to prefer one candidate while women tend to prefer the other. In Romney v. Obama, Romney has a lead among male voters, but Obama has a lead among women voters. |
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| | + | Polling also reveals that while most disapprove of the job performance by Obama, he is more "likable" than Romney is. In fact, Romney has a particularly low "likability" rating: only 26% of likely voters considered Romney to be likable prior to the Republican National Convention in August 2012. |
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| | + | In light of the polling information, Romney's acceptance speech attempted to make himself more "likable" and to try to increase his popularity by women voters. Here are some examples from his speech:<ref>http://www.marketwatch.com/story/text-of-mitt-romneys-convention-speech-2012-08-30?pagenumber=1</ref> |
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| | + | {{cquote|I knew that her [Mitt Romney's wife Ann's] job as a mom was harder than mine. And I knew without question, that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine.}} |
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| | + | {{cquote|[Romney and a friend] started a new business called Bain Capital. The only problem was, while WE believed in ourselves, nobody else did. We were young and had never done this before and we almost didn’t get off the ground. In those days, sometimes I wondered if I had made a really big mistake.}} |
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| | == Politics as a Team Sport == | | == Politics as a Team Sport == |