Washington

Trump Surges Past Clinton With Post-Convention Bump

Voters would like to see Trump spend less time on Twitter. (Rob Kunzig/Morning Consult)

The Republican National Convention came in for criticism from many of the major media outlets. However, a new Morning Consult survey indicates the typical post-convention bump that a party tends to receive following its gathering.

In the national poll, conducted from July 22 through July 24, Donald Trump pulls ahead of Hillary Clinton by 4 points, a sizable swing from the past week, when the former secretary of State was clinging to a 2-point lead. In a three-candidate scenario including former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee pulls in 10 percent of the vote, and Trump still leads Clinton by 4 points. Trump has been on a positive trend since the Department of Justice determined that there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute Clinton for her use of a private email server for official business while serving in the Obama administration.

Related: Toplines and crosstabs

NameApproveDon't Know / No OpinionDisapproveNet Value
Joe Biden41508-9
Jair Bolsonaro385210-14
Mario Draghi5935624
Boris Johnson30655-35
Fumio Kishida404416-3
Emmanuel Macron37567-20
Narendra Modi7222650
Moon Jae-in38548-16
Scott Morrison42526-10
AndrŽs Manuel L—pez Obrador6428836
Pedro S‡nchez38538-15
Olaf Scholz404911-9
Justin Trudeau38557-16

Much of the shift can be attributed to a consolidation of the base among Republicans. Eighty-five percent of Republicans in the new poll said they would vote for Trump, compared with just less than eight in 10 Republicans (79 percent) from the week before.

The convention itself received a fair amount of attention from the public. More than half of voters (53 percent) said they listened to a lot or some of the convention.

See: Toplines and crosstabs

Almost half (48 percent) rated Trump’s speech as good or excellent, which is essentially tied with the speech given by his daughter, Ivanka Trump, but higher than his running mate, Mike Pence, or RNC Chairman Reince Priebus.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s speech, which closed with vociferous boos from the crowd as he advised Republicans to vote their “conscience” in November, was poorly received by voters.

Along with Cruz, only the speech from Trump’s wife, Melania – widely panned as plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech – received negative ratings.

More than four in 10 (43 percent) of voters said the convention gave them a more favorable impression of the Republican Party, whereas three in 10 (31 percent) said it gave them a less favorable view of the Democratic Party.

The new survey included a slight increase in the number of respondents who identify as Republicans, up to 32 percent from 30 percent, compared with polling conducted before the Republican National Convention, and a decline in the share of respondents identifying as Democrats, to 33 percent from 37 percent. Therefore, both changes in vote intention and in the composition of the survey sample can help explain the apparent shift toward Trump.

The national Morning Consult survey polled 2,502 registered voters for a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Morning Consult