Gallup: No bounce for Romney from VP pick

Story by The Hill

Written by Jonathan Easley

Mitt Romney’s standing in the presidential race has not changed since he announced Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate, according to the latest national daily-tracking poll from Gallup.

Romney led Gallup’s national daily-tracking poll 46 percent to 45 over President Obama in the four days prior to the Ryan announcement, and has led Obama 47 to 45 percent in the four days since. That’s a bump of 1 percentage point for Romney, although the daily Gallup poll has a 3 percent margin of error.

The findings are consistent with a poll Gallup released on Monday, which found a plurality of Americans were not enthusiastic about the Ryan pick.

Forty-two percent said they viewed Ryan’s candidacy as a “fair” or “poor” move by the Romney campaign, compared to 39 percent who said it was an “excellent” or “pretty good” choice.

Romney campaign pollster Neil Newhouse attributed the low marks to Ryan not being widely known outside of Washington or his home state of Wisconsin.

“All these numbers indicate is the simple fact that Congressman Paul Ryan was not a nationally known figure prior to being named as Gov. Romney's vice-presidential pick,” he told USA Today.

According to Gallup, in 2008 Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) saw a two-point bump in the immediate aftermath of his selection of then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and Obama lost two points after unveiling then-Sen. Joe Biden )D-Del.) as his running mate.

In the four elections prior to 2008, the challengers saw bounces of between 3 and 9 percent after making their VP picks.

Obama leads Romney nationally by 3.5 percent, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls. While the two most closely followed daily tracking polls, Gallup and Rasmussen, show Romney in the lead, every other major poll released in August shows Obama in the lead.