Birds on the Brain

But here’s the bad news for Mr. Romney: no candidate who trailed by as much he did heading into the first debate went on to win the election. In the two cases where the lead reversed after the debate, 1980 and 2000, the trailing candidate was down only one or two points in the polls…. More bad news for Mr. Romney: although there has been a tendency for the challenging candidate to gain ground immediately after the first debate, there has not been any tendency for the challenger to gain over the remaining weeks of the election. On average during these years, the challenging candidate trailed by 1.5 percentage points in polls conducted just after the first debate — and the challenger eventually lost the election, on average, by 1.4 percentage points, a nearly identical margin.