It’s down to Florida and Ohio

With the polls showing it’s neck and neck the rush to back Bush has continued on both sides of the Atlantic and he is still the firm favourite that he was this morning. These are the latest polls.

Bush 48.7 Kerry 49.5 D Corps
Bush 49 Kerry 49 Gallup
Bush 51 Kerry 48 Pew

Normally with an election so close you would expect this to be reflected in the betting. But not so in the US where the offshore Tradesports has it to Bush by 55.5 to 44.5.`The Iowa University “political futures exchange” has similar figures and in the UK Betfair’s price have steadied a touch to 1.74 Bush to 2.32 Kerry.

This was an email we got from William Hill this afternoon; “Bookies William Hill say punters are in no doubt that George Bush will win the US Election. ‘Over the weekend and all day Monday we have seen a stream of bets for George Bush, from a tenner to ten grand, and very little support for John Kerry’ said Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe, ‘The opinion pollsters don’t seem to agree – but our cutsomers are paying us to give their opinion that Bush will win!’ Hills have now cut Bush from 4/7 to 8/15 favourite and lengthened Kerry from 5/4 to 11/8.

At all these prices Kerry is great value. If you want further comfort read this from the excellent Slate analysis

Here is the math that matters: If all the states in which the data lean discernibly to either candidate vote as the polls suggest, the election will come down to Florida and Ohio. If Bush takes both, he wins. If Kerry takes either, he wins. We assess the probability in each state independently, and we assume that neither state’s turnout affects the other’s. Since the odds in each of the two states are approximately 50-50, with a tiny edge to Bush, the combined probability of Kerry winning the election is about 70 to 75 percent.

Meanwhile the Zogby polling organisation has done a survey of voters who only have mobile phones and, until, are excluded from conventional polls. The conclusion – this group splits Kerry 55 Bush 40.