Below The Beltway

Over the next several days, starting today, we will get a chance to see what impact the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate has had on the race, and on Barack Obama’s convention bounce in the polls.

In today’s Rasmussen tracking poll, Obama remains ahead of McCain by the same margin as yesterday:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday is the first to include reaction to both Barack Obama’s acceptance speech and John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin to be his running mate. The numbers are little changed since yesterday and show Barack Obama attracting 47% of the vote nationwide while John McCain earns 43%. When “leaners” are included, it’s Obama 49% and McCain 45%

Obama currently leads by thirteen points among women while McCain leads by six among men. Among white women, the candidates are essentially even while McCain holds a substantial lead among white men

Rasmussen also notes that there has been an initially positive, albeit partisan, reaction to Palin’s selection:

Sarah Palin has made a good first impression. Before being named as John McCain’s running mate, 67% of voters didn’t know enough about the Alaska governor to have an opinion. After her debut in Dayton and a rush of media coverage, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 53% now have a favorable opinion of Palin while just 26% offer a less flattering assessment.

Palin earns positive reviews from 78% of Republicans, 26% of Democrats and 63% of unaffiliated voters. Obviously, these numbers will be subject to change as voters learn more about her in the coming weeks. Among all voters, 29% have a Very Favorable opinion of Palin while 9% hold a Very Unfavorable view.

By way of comparison, on the day he was selected as Barack Obama’s running mate, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden was viewed favorably by 43% of voters.

And, of course, Biden ended up having almost no impact on Obama’s poll numbers.

However, the initially positive reaction to Palin is, for the most part, meaningless because the public clearly doesn’t know anything about her and has only seen her speak once as the Vice-Presidential nominee. The question is whether these numbers will hold up and whether Sarah Palin will hold up to the scrutiny that is to come.

In the Gallup Poll, Obama is maintaining the eight point lead he held yesterday:

With 49% of the vote, Obama has tied his high for the campaign to date. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.) He has received a boost in the polls coming out of the Democratic Party’s convention this week, at which he became the first African-American to be nominated as the presidential candidate of a major political party.

The current results are based on Aug. 27-29 interviewing, which includes two nights of polling during the convention and one post-convention night on Friday. The Friday interviewing was conducted in an unusual political environment — the first conducted fully after Obama’s well-regarded acceptance speech and McCain’s surprise announcement of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. Each event in isolation has usually been associated with increased candidate support for the relevant party. On this day — with strong partisan forces pushing the public in both directions — Obama still polled better than he had been prior to the convention, but not as well as he was polling on the individual nights of the convention.

Will the bounce hold ? Only time will tell.