After Donald Trump picked Mike Pence to be his running mate two weeks ago -- that feels like two months ago, right? -- we suggested that Trump could end up taking at least a temporary lead because of the convention bounce that presidential candidates typically get after their conventions.

It appears that Trump has in fact gotten a bounce, at least in some polls. The most dramatic change so far came in the CNN/ORC poll, which shifted all the way from a seven-point Hillary Clinton lead to a three-point Trump edge. On the other hand, the NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll didn’t change at all (it showed a 46%-45% Clinton lead both before and after the convention), and there were some other contradictory signs. Nonetheless, Trump’s numbers generally improved, as is common after a convention. Based on the median of five polls surveyed in the period after the GOP convention that have been released so far, Trump has experienced a three-point bounce relative to his median the week before Republicans gathered in Cleveland.

That’s clearly a small sample, but put it all together and Trump has taken a small, one-point lead in the RealClearPolitics average, while Clinton has an equally small one-point lead in the HuffPost Pollster average (that average is less sensitive to short-term changes). Our advice would be to wait before drawing conclusions: Clinton still has an opportunity to get a bounce from her convention, and we also may have some more polls later in the week to further measure the size of Trump’s bounce.

For the time being, we’re sticking with our current Electoral College ratings, which show Clinton with 347 electoral votes safe, likely, and leaning to her, with 191 safe/likely/leaning Trump. We agree that if the election were held today, it would almost certainly be closer than that -- and that Trump could very well win. But the election isn’t being held today -- it’s actually still about 100 days away. Our ratings are a forecast for November, not a reflection of the day-to-day state of play, and we still see Clinton with an edge.

If the dust settles from the conventions the next few weeks and the numbers are still what they are today, then we very well may have to reassess. We’ve long suggested that a generic Republican may have been favored to win this election, but that Trump wasn’t a generic Republican. But maybe we’re wrong about that, and that the same factors that would boost a generic Republican, like a desire for change after eight years of Democratic rule, are enough to get Trump over the finish line, too.

Sean Trende, friend of the Crystal Ball and astute RealClearPolitics analyst, has been urging caution over regarding Clinton as a big favorite, and his latest column is well worth reading in that regard. Trump, in spite of everything, is hanging tough, and it seems like the vast majority of Republicans have embraced him as their own.

If the millions upon millions of largely unanswered campaign dollars that the Clinton campaign and its allies are pouring into the swing states are having an effect, it’s hard to say there is an obvious one. Perhaps the Trump strategy of holding his more limited resources back for later in the campaign is a wise one.

In fact, there is scant evidence that early ad spending makes a lasting impression, although the Obama and Romney 2012 campaigns would disagree -- those professionals believe Obama’s early ad blitz against Romney helped negatively define the Republican. But it may be that the early Clinton campaign ads are not making much of a difference.

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