Despite the drop in the relative size of the audience, the broadcasts still can be expected to draw quite a crowd. The Harvard researchers estimate that, in any given minute of convention coverage, there will probably be about 12 million households tuned in. Any further reduction in the size of the convention audience may be bad news for the two parties, which already have calculated the size of the traditional post-election bounce into their strategies for the fall campaign. Some political observers have dismissed the bounce as a distraction. After all, there are two conventions and two bounces that bounce in different directions, thus quickly canceling each other out.
Bounces differ in size and longevity.
Some even last until Election Day. Bill Clinton went into the Democratic convention one point behind George Bush and left it 29 points ahead. Skeptics scoffed, calling it momentary. But it lasted, and from then to Election Day, Clinton never trailed. Langer, a onetime Associated Press reporter, notes that Bush responded with a substantial bounce of his own.