Just days after Mitt Romney picks Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, polls show that the as the public gets to know Ryan, they like him.
Washington Post/ABC News poll, details via Wapo:
Little known nationally before Saturday’s announcement, favorable impressions of Ryan jumped 15 percentage points among the overall electorate with positive views soaring from 49 to 70 percent among conservative Republicans.
In Wednesday through Friday interviews, fully 45 percent of Americans expressed no opinion of Ryan, dropping to 30 percent on Saturday and Sunday. The increasing familiarity all went to the positive side of the ledger, giving Ryan an initial advantage in the sprint to define his candidacy.
Overall, in interviews after his selection, 38 percent of all Americans express favorable views of Ryan, 33 percent negative ones. (Before the the announcement, Ryan was somewhat underwater, scoring 23 percent favorable, 32 unfavorable.) The most recent national numbers on Vice President Joe Biden are from a July Pew Research Center poll showing a split decision, 40 percent favorable, 37 percent unfavorable.
One of the largest movements on Ryan’s favorability numbers was the 21-point jump among conservative Republicans, but the initial movement was positive among independents as well, doubling from 19 to 39 percent. The shift among Democrats was similar in both a positive (up 10 percentage points on favorability) and negative direction (up eight on unfavorability).
Before the announcement, senior citizens split 28 percent apiece positively and negatively on Ryan, but afterward his favorable number shot to 46 percent with no change on the other side of the equation.
[Update] Here is the ABC News report on the poll. [End Update]
Big Government also points to he Democratic leaning pollster Public Policy Polling and a tweet from them from today:
Ryan's favorability numbers in Ohio are actually *best* with seniors at 38/29
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) August 13, 2012
From the previous Wake up America piece:
One of the most prolific fundraisers in Congress, Ryan has drawn nearly $400,000 from retirees this election cycle, dramatically outperforming most House lawmakers, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics. (Source- Roll Call)
Reminder of what I said this morning in a piece titled "By Choosing The Democrats' Boogeyman Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney Shows He Is Listening To Voters":
By choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney has chosen to not run from the radical, extreme label, but to embrace it. To make the argument that it is going to take an extreme change, a radical approach to put America's fiscal house in order, to put people to work, to lower our debt and deficit, and to turn around the economy.
What Romney and Ryan are betting on is that Americans aren't just saying they want jobs, economy and federal deficit to be a priority, but that they actually mean it.
If the lines outside the campaign rallies and the standing room only and the thousands upon thousands of people standing outside the events are anything to go by, that is a bet they are going to win.
Game on!
