Awareness, Partisanship and the Post-Convention Bounce: A Memory-Based Model of Post- Convention Presidential Candidate Evaluations Part 1—Introduction & Theoretical Analysis

This paper employs panel data to estimate the effects of awareness and political partisanship on post-convention candidate evaluations. The theoretical framework proposed by John Zaller (1992) is employed; however, a functional form that differs greatly from Zaller’s proposed model is derived from Zaller’s assumption and then estimated using standard OLS regression. I find that partisans of the opposite party were more resistant to the convention message of Bush than Gore, awareness plays a greater role in determining predicted post-convention change for Gore, and that Gore’s message was received and accepted at a higher rate than Bush’s message.