New Gallup Poll

From Gallup:

A potential shift in fortunes for the Republicans in Congress is seen in the latest USA Today/Gallup survey, with the Democrats now leading the Republicans by just 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, in voters’ “generic ballot” preferences for Congress. This is down from consistent double-digit Democratic leads seen on this measure over the past year…

If these numbers are sustained through Election Day — a big if — Republicans could be expected to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

As Gallup’s long-term “generic ballot” trend shows, the Democrats held a sizable lead on this measure from the time they won back control of Congress in the fall of 2006 through last month. If the current closer positioning of the parties holds, the structure of congressional preferences will be similar to most of the period from 1994 through 2005, when Republicans won and maintained control of Congress.

I’ve puzzled and puzzled over numbers like this (and other similar numbers) until my puzzler was sore.

How does a presidential campaign bounce translate into things like sudden narrowing in party self-identification and the generic ballot preference, which tend to be unrelated (to varying degrees)? What sort of presidential campaign and national convention suddenly causes members of a party to not only surge support for their nominee, but create a sharp surge in support for the entire political party across the board?

(Read more after the leap)

Is this typical of bounces historically? I’m not Michael Barone or Charlie Cook, but I know of no example of a convention bounce reverberating into all of these other only tangentially-related areas.

Did you see something similar from the Democrats after their convention? Not as far as I can find.

I theorized last week that Senator John McCain (of all people) and Governor Sarah Palin have managed with the recent convention to not cause a normal bounce, but to do something to the perception of the Republican Party brand. Not just among independents and swing voters, but (and perhaps more importantly) among conservatives and other voters that previously (from 1994 to 2004) self-identified themselves as Republicans.

Until very recently, those people didn’t want to associate themselves with the Republican Party. It was the party of George W. Bush, of a variety of corrupt politicians, of misguided government, and of bigger government. But the convention seems to have changed this. John McCain seems determined to remake the Republican Party on a variety of fronts, ranging from ethics and government waste to smaller government to more effective government, and George W. Bush is simply receding from the minds of many voters; he isn’t on the ballot and neither is his vice president.

This is all just extraordinary. It’s not your typical bounce, at least as far as I can tell. It might fade with time, but it’s sure not normal.

EDIT: The AP has a poll showing a similar closing of the generic ballot gap. That is the third such poll to note this trend. This same poll also notes that more voters find Barack Obama to be inexperienced than find Sarah Palin to be inexperienced. That’s a pleasant surprise, what with Obama being at the top of the Democratic ticket and Palin being the Republican number two and all.