It was mostly Democrats who watched last week’s convention, and they love what they saw. Now that Republicans are starting theirs, we find a Republican Party whose voters not only have a different view of things in America than Democrats do – but also one very different from most voters in general. And therein lies Republicans’ own challenge.
Republicans see an America – to borrow Ronald Reagan’s famous test – today better than it was four years ago, mainly, they say, because of their confidence in President Trump.
For most Republicans, America is a nation where the economy is still reasonably good, where the effort to treat the coronavirus is doing at least something good and the president is doing a very good job. For them, the virus is less worrying in the first place. They believe that the 170,000 deaths are too many and that can be considered acceptable to many so far. And it is a nation where, for an overwhelming number of Republicans, there has been too much focus on racial discrimination of late.
And so when their convention begins, one test appears for the GOP to see if they can persuade more Americans to participate in these assessments.
There is also plenty of what is called negative participation at work. For four in 10 Republicans, their loyalty to the GOP is not so much based on liking everything it stands for, but mostly on not liking what Democrats stand for. And that too, the calculation might be something that makes the GOP convention more comprehensive.
Another area in which Republicans generally disagree with voters is about perceptions of the Black Lives Matter movement. Most voters agree with the ideas of the movement, while most Republicans do not. In fact, two-thirds disagree. Eight in 10 Republicans think there has been too much attention on the issue of discrimination lately, compared to 44% of voters in general, and just 12% of Democrats.
As Democrats did for them, Republicans say they want their party’s convention to be positive. Nine in 10 want to hear good things about Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, instead of criticizing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Democrats respond to their convention, Biden holds the same lead
Meanwhile, the Democrats’ convention – which was mostly viewed by Democrats – seems to have stunned Biden’s existing support, and those who saw it said it felt positive.
Biden came in with 82% of his supporters “very strong” behind him, and this went up to 87%. It also shifted the reason of his voters for supporting him. Of course, many of Biden’s supporters were with him primarily against the president, but today, relatively more Democrats support Biden because they are for Biden – which is part with nine points up.
Democrats came in at 66% “very” enthusiastic about voting and now they are at 69%, up, but still Republicans lie about the measure; Republicans’ enthusiasm also went up. For these measures, we surveyed respondents immediately after the conclusion of the Democratic convention, and contacted voters we had interviewed earlier.
The Electoral College will decide the presidency, but Biden maintains his overall national preference lead over Mr. Trump at 10 points, unchanged from last week, in solidarity, but not adding to the oversized margin. (For historical contexts, in an era of high partisanship, with mostly partisans voting for conventions, national polls in CBS News polls have been limited to 21st-century Democratic conventions. Recent Democratic challengers have only one-digit polling motion received at its best from its conventions in 2016, 2008 and 2004.)
Many convention attendees say they came up with a more positive view of Biden. This is especially the case among voters in his own party, but 45% of independents who said they now feel more positive about Biden, more than the 30% who say they feel more negative.
The CBS News national survey was conducted by YouGov with a nationally representative sample of 2,226 U.S. registered voters interviewed between August 19-21, 2020. The margin of error is ± 2.4 points. The NBS National Post-Convention Survey was conducted by YouGov with a nationally representative sample of 957 U.S. registered voters re-interviewed following the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention, between August 20-22, 2020, and who was interviewed on CBS News interviews prior to the convention. The margin of error is ± 3.6 points.
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