American Public Opinion About Election 2004
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
by Joseph Carroll
Gallup polling after this year's political conventions finds
Americans generally receptive to the conventions and the
candidates' acceptance speeches. Roughly 4 in 10 Americans also
said they were more likely to vote for Republican incumbent George
W. Bush and, in a separate question, for Democratic challenger John
Kerry as a result of the conventions.
Viewership of This Year's Conventions
After the Democratic and Republican conventions, Gallup asked
Americans about how much of each convention they watched on
television. Americans were just slightly more likely to report
having watched at least some of the Republican convention than to
say this about the Democratic convention. The polls show that 63%
of Americans said they watched a great deal or some of the GOP
convention, compared with 59% who watched the Democratic
convention.
Not surprisingly, self-reported convention viewership varied
significantly depending on partisanship, with Republicans and
Democrats each much more likely to state that they watched their
own party's convention. Seventy-four percent of Democrats said they
watched at least some of the convention on television. This
compares with 56% of independents and 46% of Republicans who
watched that amount of the Democratic convention. By comparison,
81% of Republicans said they watched a great deal or some of the
GOP convention, compared with 52% of independents and 49% of
Democrats.
Rating Kerry's and Bush's Convention Speeches
Gallup's convention polling this year finds few differences in
the public's overall ratings of Kerry's and Bush's acceptance
speeches at their respective parties' conventions. A slight
majority of Americans, 52%, rated Kerry's speech at the Democratic
convention as excellent (25%) or good (27%), while just about half
of all Americans rated Bush's speech at the Republican convention
as excellent (22%) or good (27%). About one in five adults
nationwide rated both speeches as "just okay," and fewer than 1 in
10 said the speeches were "poor" or "terrible."
Again, partisan viewpoints make a big difference in ratings of
the acceptance speeches. Eighty-one percent of Democrats rated
Kerry's acceptance speech as excellent or good, compared with 52%
of independents and 22% of Republicans. Seventy-seven percent of
Republicans rated Bush's speech positively, while 42% of
independents and 24% of Democrats shared that point of view.
How Did the Conventions Affect Americans' Vote
Choice?
When Americans were asked if the conventions made them more
likely or less likely to vote for the candidates, Gallup found that
Kerry fared slightly better than Bush. After the Democratic
convention, 44% of Americans said they were more likely to vote for
Kerry, while 30% said they were less likely and 18% voluntarily
responded that it didn't make much difference. Polling after the
GOP convention found 41% of Americans saying they were more likely
to vote for Bush, 38% saying they were less likely, and 18% saying
it made no difference.
Following the Democratic convention, 76% of Democrats said they
were more likely to vote for Kerry as a result of that convention,
compared with 45% of independents and just 11% of Republicans who
felt that way. After the Republican convention, the results were
essentially the reverse. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans said
they were more likely to vote for Bush as a result of the
convention, compared with 33% of independents and 8% of
Democrats.
Despite these self-reported reactions, of course, Kerry did not
gain in Gallup's trial-heat balloting following his convention,
while Bush enjoyed a slight uptick in polling after his
convention.
