A new Pew Research Center study says that potential voters are more interested in the convention platform of each party instead of big name speakers that have appeared in Tampa and will appear this week in Charlotte. The poll was conducted prior to the Tampa Republican National Convention and covered the different interest levels of three topics at the two conventions: the platform, the states roll calls and reaction to speakers.
For both conventions, the public’s interest was much higher regarding the platform of each party and the lowest interest was for the roll call of each of the states. More members of the public were interested in the Democratic platform than the Republican platform.
Overall, 55% of the people polled showed interest in learning more about the platform of the Democrats, while 52% said they were curious about the Republican platform. Following that, the next highest level of interest was in the upcoming speech of President Bill Clinton at the convention.
Among voters who are registered as Republican, Democrat or Independent, there were higher levels of interest in the platform of the opposing party and equal interest for both party platforms amongst Independents.
One part in the survey that was eye catching was the large falloff of interest by voters in this week’s Democratic convention. When the poll was taken in 2008, over 59% of the people polled said they were interested in the convention that took place in Denver, while the interest for the current convention in Charlotte is just 43%. The level of interest for the Republican convention was similar to the percentages for the conventions in 2004 and 2008.
