How will Nevada impact on the nomination betting?

A massive win in Nevada for Mitt Romney, the scale of which was not predicted by the polls, has seen his price for the GOP nomination tighten to 3.1/1 putting him in the second favourite slot behind John McCain. The RCP polling average was suggesting that the race would be much tighter and, indeed, one survey this week had the senior Senator from the neighbouring state of Arizona, John McCain, in the lead.

The Democratic race has been much tighter and looks as though it has come out broadly in line with the polls with a reasonable victory for Hillary Clinton.

This is how ABC News is judging the result:“Obviously, a huge win for Sen. Clinton. She clearly gains the edge in a tight contest, but South Carolina is only a week away, and then we’re going straight through to Feb. 5. And yet Clinton can now claim a clear win in the first state to weigh in with a large number of minority voters. She can also claim to have put in a place a political machine that was able to overcome what was expected to be the state’s most potent: the culinary workers, whose endorsement of Obama turned out not to mean that much in the end..It should be noted that a Clinton win was projected by the recent polls; the Obama campaign is hoping they’ll be judged against that point spread, to use a Vegas term.”

There’s been some tightening of the Clinton price for the nomination and as at 2150 GMT she was at 0.57/1.

But the evening is far from over. Still to come are the results from the Republican race in South Carolina where John McCain and Mike Huckabee have been running a tight campaign.

Mike Smithson

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