Is the Bush-Cheney ticket a certainty?

Since the Republican Convention in New York at the end of August the betting markets have followed the polls and Bush is a red hot favourite. It’s hard to call anything other than Bush.

But it’s worth looking back at what happened last time to check which pollsters were most accurate. These were the final polls.

CNN/Gallup tracking poll: Bush over Gore 47-45.

Wall St. Journal: Bush over Gore 47-44.

ABC/Washington Post: Bush over Gore 48-45.

Tarrance: Bush over Gore 46-41.

Christian Science Monitor: Bush over Gore 48-46.

CBS: Gore over Bush by 1

Zogby: Gore 47-Bush 46

The final result was Gore 500,000 votes ahead. But after the pro-longed legal battle Bush won Florida, came top in the “electoral college” and took the White House. Only Zogby and CBS got the vote shares right.

A useful tool is this site which has an excellent interactive map showing the latest polls in each state and a running total. What is interesting is that you can select your pollster and, beating in mind Zogby’s success last time, the picture for the Democratic ticket does not look as bad as some are painting it.

It’s a brave punter, though, who goes with Kerry even at the current odds but it might start to move and it does look less certain for the President if you just follow the Zogby national and state polls.

If you think that this election is over there’s now a market on who will by the Republican candidate in 2008. This is a long time to lock up your money, many things could happen in the meantime, and the prices don’t look very generous.