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Forecasting the 1936 Presidential Election
Reference: Freedman, Pisani, and Purves,
Statistics, Third Edition
, W. H. Norton, 1998.
In 1936, Franklin Deleno Roosevelt (FDR) was completing his first term as president of the U. S.
He was running against Alfred Landon of Kansas.
Most election observers thought that Roosevelt would be an easy winner.
The
Literary Digest
magazine predicted that Landon would be the winner by surveying 2.4 million persons.
George Gallop was just starting his survey organization.
He predicted that Roosevelt would win, by surveying only 50,000 people.
He also predicted the
Digest
result by surveying only 3,000 people.
Here are the results:
The election result
62
Literary Digest's
prediction
43
Gallup's prediction of
Digest
prediction
44
Gallup's prediction of election result
56
Think of ways to explain these results.