"Romney Just Can’t Sustain Any Momentum (CHART)"

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/weak-jobs-reports-no-effect-polling-romney-momentum-obama.php?ref=fpb

"One by one, Mitt Romney has failed to capitalize on some of his campaign’s biggest opportunities to gain on President Obama in the polls, let alone sustain any momentum.

The chart below is based on Gallup’s daily tracking polls, which are conducted over seven-day periods, beginning on April 29 and concluding on Sept. 15. Along the trend lines, notable events have been highlighted."

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"• Jobs numbers
The chart marks the release of the government’s monthly jobs reports for April through August. Though Obama’s campaign is thought by some to be tied inextricably to the health of the economy, Romney has made few substantial polling gains, even in the wake of disappointing jobs reports, which are released on the first Friday of each month to great fanfare. Some commentators have even hyped the jobs reports as a metric to gauge Obama’s re-election chances, while Republicans have used the often-discouraging numbers as evidence to support their argument that the president’s policies have failed. But Romney has never really been in a more advantageous political position following the release of even the weakest reports.

Romney’s most discernible bounce came after the July report, which was released on Aug. 3 and showed that the economy had added 161,000 jobs, exceeding expectations. Even that didn’t trigger much of a bump for Romney in the near-term. In Gallup’s tracking period immediately following the report — conducted Aug. 4-10 — Romney and Obama were tied. The Republican nominee grabbed his first lead of the month in the tracking period of Aug. 7-13, a stretch that also included the days following his vice presidential selection. By the end of the month, the president had re-claimed the lead — an advantage he has not relinquished to this day"

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