What if Hillary doesn't get a "Bernie Bounce"?

[Angrie]

After Cruz dropped out, Trump clearly got a substantial party unity bounce. According to the conventional wisdom around here, with which I basically agree, Hillary's relatively poor polling at the moment is basically attributable to the fact that she has not yet gotten a similar unity bounce. One would expect her to get a similar party unity bounce, a "Bernie Bounce," when Bernie drops out. So if Bernie were to drop out after California, we would expect that she would get a bounce, and polling would go back to about where it was before Cruz dropped out (at least a 5-10 point national lead for Hillary).

However, Bernie has made clear that he's not going to do that, and will stay "in" through the Democratic Convention. That means that going into the Republican National Convention, Hillary should still not have received a "Bernie Bounce." One would then expect that going into the RNC, polling will probably be similar to today, with the preponderance of national polling showing a slim Clinton lead, but with some also showing Trump ahead, as well as a few frightening (outlier ?) polls such as those showing her only barely ahead in NJ or MI or down in OR.

That means that if Trump gets a "normal" convention bounce, he should pull clearly ahead in national polls, and be doing very well in a lot of state polls following the RNC. If Hillary then just gets a "normal" convention bounce, all that will do is restore the race to about where it is now - with an apparent slight Clinton lead, but with some significant contrary evidence that Trump has a chance. That's not an acceptable place to be. The risk to America, to freedom, and to the world from a Little Benito administration is simply too great.

So to get back where she was before Trump locked up the Republican nomination, Hillary will need a larger than "normal" bounce coming out of the convention. That is because the bounce that Clinton gets out of the convention should consist of two separate parts - a Bernie Bounce resulting from the end of the primary and from party unity, and a "normal" bounce that you always expect to get from the news coverage and prime time speeches surrounding the convention.

However, what if that does not happen? If Bernie dropped out after California and endorsed Hillary, that would be a separate news event from the Democratic Convention. Hillary would get a Bernie Bounce from that, and then later would get a convention bump of (probably) about "normal" magnitude. But if Bernie ending his campaign happens at the same time as the Democratic Convention, those are only a single news event. I'm not convinced that this is the case, but insofar as it is separate news events that drive these bounces, then the fact that these would be compressed into a single news event could conceivably mean that Hillary would only get a "normal" convention bounce, without ever receiving a separate party unity Bernie Bounce.

On the other hand, there is the possibility that for his part, Trump might not get a "normal" convention bounce. Why? Because the fact that Clinton has not yet gotten a Bernie Bounce, but Trump has gotten a party unity bounce means that the playing field is more "skewed" towards the GOP than "normal" going into the conventions. If that is the case, then Hillary won't need as big of a convention bounce in order to pull comfortably ahead of Trump. A "normal" bounce, or a "slightly above normal" bounce incorporating a Bernie Bounce might suffice.

Of course, there are always still the debates. But then an awful lot rides on the debates, and if Trump does better than expected in the debates, he could then have a real, legitimate chance of winning.

So, if Hillary doesn't get a "Bernie Bounce" in addition to the usual convention bounce that all candidates normally get, even with all their primary opponents already having dropped out, at what point does panic start to set in? If she doesn't get a Bernie bounce, and is still polling similarly to how she is polling now, she probably has a slight edge, but there is a real risk that Trump could win.