The public paid far less attention to this year’s Republican convention than it did to the GOP convention four years ago. Just 37% say they watched all or some of the Republican convention, down from 56% in 2008.
And while there has been a modest increase in the percentage saying they view Mitt Romney more favorably in the wake of the convention, his acceptance speech was not the highlight of the event: As many of those who watched at least a little convention coverage cited Clint Eastwood’s speech as the convention highlight (20%) as named Romney’s speech (17%). One-in-five say there was no convention highlight, about the same percentage as four years ago.
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 3 among 1,008 adults, finds that even among Republicans Romney’s speech was not the standout event of the convention. A quarter of Republican convention-watchers (25%) said Romney’s speech was the highlight, 19% named Eastwood’s performance, 15% named Paul Ryan’s speech and 13% cited Ann Romney’s address.
More independents who watched convention coverage cited Eastwood’s speech than Romney’s speech as the convention highlight (26% vs. 17%), while a plurality of Democrats (40%) said there was no convention highlight.
Four years ago, GOP nominee John McCain’s acceptance speech also was not the convention’s signature event. Fully half (50%) named GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s speech as the highlight of that convention, while 17% cited McCain’s speech, which is identical to the percentage citing Romney’s speech in the current survey.
Views of Romney: Before and After
Currently, 25% say their opinion of Romney has become more favorable in the past few days, up from 18% during the week before the GOP convention (Aug. 23-26). There has been a comparable decline in the percentage saying their views have become less favorable (from 26% to 20%). Still, a plurality says their opinion of Romney has not changed recently (44% today, 46% before the convention).
There was a similar change in views of McCain after the 2008 Republican convention: 35% said they felt more favorably toward the GOP nominee, up from 28% before the convention.
As was the case with McCain, most of the change in Romney’s image has come among Republicans: In the 
current survey, 53% say their view of Romney has become more favorable, up from 43% a week ago. Independents also have a slightly better view of Romney than did so before the convention (21% more favorable after, up from 15%).
The overall ratings of Romney’s convention speech also are similar to those for McCain in 2008. Overall, 52% say Romney’s speech was excellent (21%) or good (32%); 34% say it was only fair (21%) or poor (13%). Four years ago, 52% also gave McCain’s convention speech positive ratings while 32% viewed it negatively.
Fewer Watch Coverage than in 2008
Only about four-in-ten Americans (37%) say they watched even some coverage of the Republican convention: 17% say they watched all or most of it, while 21% watched some of it. Most watched just a little of the coverage (21%) or none of it (40%). In 2008, 56% watched at least some coverage of the Republican convention; just 21% watched no coverage, only about half the percentage as say that today.
There is far less interest in the GOP convention this year than in the 2008 Republican convention among Republicans, Democrats and independents. Four years ago, 69% of Republicans watched at least some convention coverage; 56% watched at least some coverage of the events in Tampa last week. Nearly half of Democrats (49%) watched at least some GOP convention coverage in 2008, but just 28% watched at least some of this year’s convention. Interest among independents in the Republican convention also has fallen sharply, from 52% in 2008 to 34% in the current survey.
More generally, 29% of Americans say they are following news about the presidential campaign very closely, which is virtually unchanged from last week.
Current interest in the presidential campaign is on par with interest in two other news stories – the economy and Hurricane Isaac. A third (33%) followed news about the economy very closely, 31% tracked news about the hurricane very closely, while 29% paid very close attention to the presidential campaign.
The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted August 31-September 3, 2012 among a national sample of 1,008 adults 18 years of age or older living in the continental United States (606 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 402 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 180 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older. For detailed information about our survey methodology, see: http://people-press.org/methodology/.
The combined landline and cell phone sample are weighted using an iterative technique that matches gender, age, education, race, Hispanic origin and region to parameters from the March 2011 Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and population density to parameters from the Decennial Census. The sample also is weighted to match current patterns of telephone status, based on extrapolations from the 2011 National Health Interview Survey. The weighting procedure also accounts for the fact that respondents with both landline and cell phones have a greater probability of being included in the combined sample and adjusts for household size among respondents with a landline phone. Sampling errors and statistical tests of significance take into account the effect of weighting. The following table shows the sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey:
Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request.
In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.
