How Off Were The Final RCP Averages in 2004?

November 4, 2008 | Permalink

Answer: a few points, generally.

Sources: RCP Final by state, Actual Voting, double-checked here. I’m only using states close enough that polls would be considered reliable.

State	Bush/Kerry RCP Margin	Bush/Kerry Actual Margin	Difference
Florida	Bush +0.6%	Bush +5.01%	4.41%
Ohio	Bush +2.1%	Bush +2.11%	0.01%
Pennsylvania	Kerry +0.9%	Kerry +2.5%	1.6%
Wisconsin	Bush +0.9%	Kerry +0.38%	1.28%
Iowa	Bush +0.3%	Bush +0.67%	0.37%
Minnesota	Kerry +3.2%	Kerry +3.48%	0.28%
Michigan	Kerry +3.5%	Kerry +3.42%	0.08%
Missouri	Bush +4.2%	Bush +7.2%	3%
New Mexico	Bush +1.4%	Bush +0.79%	0.61%
Nevada	Bush +6.3%	Bush +2.59%	3.71%
Colorado	Bush +5.2%	Bush +4.67%	0.53%
New Hampshire	Kerry +1.0%	Kerry +1.37%	0.37%
Maine	Kerry +9.5%	Kerry +8.99%	0.51%
West Virginia	Bush +8.5%	Bush +13%	4.5%
Oregon	Kerry 4.8%	Kerry +4.16%	0.64%
New Jersey	Kerry 7.0%	Kerry +6.68%	0.32%
Arkansas	Bush 6.5%	Bush +9.76%	3.26%
Hawaii	Bush 0.9%	Kerry +8.75%	9.65%
Average			1.95%
Average w/out Hawaii			1.50%

The Hawaii polls were not really believed at the time either, so I included a separate average without them. As you can see, the numbers were generally quite close, with only a handful of states exceeding the excessive margin.

The point for this year is that most states will likely be very close to what is predicted, but a few may differ. And the few that differ are likely to be the states polled the least, like North Dakota.

The best that McCain partisans can hope for is that there are very, very large breaks against Obama. I think that is really unlikely to occur.

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Written by John · Filed Under 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Ticket, John McCain, Poll Vaulting, Republican Ticket