Tonight I’m hosting the post-DNC live show! I’m planning on spending a good three hours on why Josh Shapiro would have been better than Tim Walz because I know that’s the kind of #content you people want. 😉

I joke because I love.

I’ll be joined by Joe Perticone, Andrew Egger and (possibly?) Sam Stein and we’ll be analyzing a pretty important moment for the campaign, where Coach Walz introduces himself to America and sets the mood that Kamala wants for her big night.

Come and stay with me on our YouTubeimmediately following Walz’s conclusion.

Also: Sarah and I are doing a special Secret Pod today! Hopefully I can send it to you by this afternoon. XOXO

I said that the waltz evening was quite important, but is that true?

No. But also yes.

Party conventions never have straightforward, causal effects from A→B on elections, and individual speeches are never decisive. But it is useful to think of a party convention as a tennis racket, with the individual speeches as the strings and the campaign as the ball. When you hit a tennis ball, all the strings play a role in creating spin. That spin affects the ball’s trajectory, sometimes in radical and important ways.

The effect of a single string is usually only noticed when it breaks and a failure occurs.

I want to talk today about how a party convention can influence the direction of an election campaign and how Bill Clinton and Tim Walz might go about it.

The first goal of a conference is to do no harm. The worst convention in modern history was the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, which ended in chaos. That didn’t happen this year. The protests this year were a joke. The Democratic Party is united.

The second goal is to maximize dynamics. The second and third worst conventions were those of George HW Bush in 1992 and John Kerry in 2004. Let’s look at what happened to them.

In 1992, the Democrats held their convention in mid-July, and Bill Clinton was a real hit. He was tied with President Bush before the convention and rose by depending on your survey between 16 points And 27 points. It was a historic rebound, and Clinton never looked back. President Bush’s rebound later that summer was a measly 5 points.

In 2004, John Kerry did well against the other President Bush – but Kerry’s party convention left no trace. His numbers remained flat or checked backward from one point. Kerry was unable to build further momentum, while Bush surged ahead and enjoyed a small but noticeable boost at his party convention in New York.

How are the Democrats doing so far on goal number 2?