A recent poll by a Boston radio station showed that support for the bid has been on a downward spiral since the city was chosen by the U.S.O.C., with only a third of residents in support of the bid, and more than half opposing it. (Those poll numbers went from 51 percent to 44 percent to 36 percent just in the last few months.)

Whatever the reason for the meager support for the Games, the U.S.O.C. said it was sticking with Boston and would not turn to Los Angeles, which, according to several people with knowledge of the results, showed support for the bid that approached 80 percent and was the strongest of the four bid cities.

The bid organizers in Los Angeles were careful not to rub that in when I spoke to them this week. They did not say they knew their poll numbers, but were confident that the people of Los Angeles were more than comfortable with having the Olympics on their doorstep.

Barry Sanders, the Southern California bid’s chairman, said that his organization was disappointed to lose to Boston, but that he wished Boston the best in winning the Games, which would be the first Summer Olympics in the United States in nearly 30 years.

“No sour grapes,” he said. “We’re not spoilers, and so we wish them well.”

Several other people connected with the bid said they did not want to comment because it might seem like schadenfreude to mention Boston’s struggles after the city’s prevote polling numbers came in so much lower than Los Angeles’s. It left those people wondering what the U.S.O.C. was thinking.

Considering that the competition to host the Olympics has become a global game of hot potato recently — one city doesn’t want it, and other cities don’t, either — they are right to wonder.

While polling should not be the sole indicator of which city should win the bid, it should be a primary factor if the technical elements of the bids are comparable. But it is too late to remind the U.S.O.C. of that now.