CHARLOTTE — It doesn't look like Mitt Romney's poll position improved after last week's Republican national convention.
Recent daily tracking poll averages nationwide put President Obama at 47 percent and Romney at 46 percent, according to Gallup.
"We have been monitoring the potential impact of the Republican convention on the presidential race on a day-by-day basis," writes Gallup's editor-in-chief Frank Newport. "So far, we don't see an impact."
Newport also noted that "both Obama and Romney for the most part have been at or around 46 percent since we began tracking in April."
In a separate post, Gallup cited a new poll showing that last week's convention in Tampa "had a minimal impact on Americans' self-reported voting intentions, with just about as many saying the convention made them less likely to vote for Mitt Romney as say it made them more likely to vote for him."
Gallup will soon start assessing the impact of the Democratic convention that starts Tuesday in North Carolina.
Newport writes:
The two-week convention phase of this election is now at its midpoint. We won't know what the impact of the two conventions is until roughly Sept. 7-13, the full week after the Democratic convention closes in Charlotte.
That will mark the beginning of Phase VI of the election — the period between the conventions and the first presidential debate on Oct. 3. The key question after next week's Democratic convention will be: Has the race for president been fundamentally reset in any way by the two weeks of the conventions?
By "reset," I mean has either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney moved ahead in the national vote by more than a few points, and stayed ahead for more than a few days?
—This story first appeared in USA Today.