19% Say A Convention Has Changed Their Vote

The growth of state primaries has largely reduced national political conventions to rah-rah sessions for the party faithful, but one-in-five voters say a convention has changed their vote.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 19% of Likely U.S. Voters say they have changed the way they were going to vote after watching a national political convention. The vast majority (74%), however, haven’t been swayed. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Thirty-five percent (35%) say they are more likely to watch a convention this year than in previous years. Twenty-one percent (21%) are less likely to do so.

Fifty-three percent (53%) are likely to watch at least some of this week’s Democratic National Convention, including 30% who are Very Likely to do so.  Among Democrats, 74% are likely to watch, with 51% who are Very Likely to tune in.

Slightly more voters (59%) say they’re likely to watch next week’s Republican National Convention, including 29% who are Very Likely to watch. Among Republicans, 81% are likely to catch at least some of their party’s convention, with 49% who are Very Likely to.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 44% are likely to watch at least some of the Democratic convention; 52% are likely to tune into some of the GOP conclave.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted August 18-19, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Voters in both major parties are getting more enthusiastic about a Donald Trump-Joe Biden presidential matchup in November.

Those under 40 are more than twice as likely as their elders to have changed how they were going to vote after watching a national political convention.

Sixteen percent (16%) of Republicans say they’ve changed how they were going to vote after a convention, as have 20% of both Democrats and voters not affiliated with either major party.

Women are more enthusiastic than men and blacks more eager than whites and other minority voters to watch a convention this year.

Biden leads Trump by four points in Rasmussen Reports’ latest weekly White House Watch survey. 

Fifty percent (50%) of all voters expect most reporters to try to help Biden in the upcoming campaign. Only five percent (5%) say most will try to help Trump instead.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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