Governor Romney’s spanking of Barack Obama in Denver last week is beginning to show up in the polls in a significant manner.
First, let’s look at how real the polling shift is. Per Gallup:
PRINCETON, NJ — Registered voters’ preferences for president are evenly split in the first three days of Gallup tracking since last Wednesday’s presidential debate. In the three days prior to the debate, Barack Obama had a five-percentage-point edge among registered voters.
That five-point bounce in Gallup is even larger than the post-convention bounce Obama briefly enjoyed in the aftermath of the Democrats’ North Carolina shindig. More importantly, Romney’s bounce is coming after a head-to-head matchup with Obama in front of a far larger audience. Gallup warns the bounce’s positive trajectory for Romney may continue to grow in the coming days.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen considering what Gallup also reported today:
An Oct. 4-5 Gallup poll finds roughly two in three Americans reporting that they watched the Oct. 3 debate, similar to what Gallup measured for each of the three 2008 presidential debates. Those who viewed the debate overwhelmingly believe Romney did a better job than Obama, 72% to 20%. Republicans were nearly unanimous in judging Romney the winner. But even Democrats rated Romney as doing a better job than Obama, 49% to 39%.
That’s an even bigger win than the snap CNN poll of registered voters that found Romney the winner by a 67-25 margin — also the largest victory in that poll’s history.
Romney’s bounce is also seen in Colorado, where two Gravis Marketing polls found Romney going from a 5 point deficit with Obama before the Denver drubbing to a 3.5 point lead over the President after the debate.
The question then becomes, as Politico’s Maggie Haberman wrote in a must-read piece this morning: Is the polling shift a bounce, which by definition is ephemeral, or a vault?