Obama Gets No Polling Bounce from Denver!

I took Zogby's numbers yesterday on John McCain leading Barack Obama 47 to 45 percent in the presidential horse race with a grain of salt. Zogby uses some funky panel sampling methodology, which raises reliability issues with his findings.

But CNN's new survey shows a statistical dead heat, with McCain trailing Obama by just one point in the general election matchup, 49 to 48 percent:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Sunday night shows the Obama-Biden ticket leading the McCain-Palin ticket by one point, 49 percent to 48 percent, a statistical dead heat.

The survey was conducted Friday through Sunday, after both the conclusion of the Democratic convention and McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

A previous CNN poll, taken just one week earlier, suggested the race between Sens. McCain, R-Arizona, and Obama, D-Illinois, was tied at 47 percent each.

“The convention — and particularly Obama's speech — seems to be well-received. And the selection of Sarah Palin as the GOP running mate, also seems to be well-received. So why is the race still a virtual tie? Probably because the two events created equal and opposite bounces — assuming that either one created a bounce at all,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

I predicted so much in my earlier entry, "Obama Will Get No Post-Denver Polling Bounce," which was based the expectation of a continuing Obama pre-convention polling collapse, as well as the likely impact of the McCain campaign's aggressive early veep announcement rollout (which has had a more phenomenal impact than anyone could have imagined).