November’s US midterms are looking a lot tighter than a month or so ago
The polling average narrows
The Betfair betting exchange get tighter
>For the past year or so many people have been predicting that the US midterms, the elections that take place exactly 2 years after a presidential election, would not be very good for Mr Trump.
In particular the House of Representatives, which is currently controlled by the Republicans, looked set to flip and that would frustrate enormously legislative objectives of the presidency.
The Senate comma though, is a different matter. About a third of the 100 members are up for election and the ones that will be contested this year looks pretty promising for the Republicans with a few chances for the Democrats. This is despite the fact that the current split in the Senate is 51 to 49 to the Republicans.
The generic congressional polling question, featured in the top chart above, shows how the gap has been narrowing and because of the way that congressional boundaries are worked out then the Republicans could still hold on even if they are a few percentage points behind on the overall national vote. This is called, as we all know, gerrymandering and happens because congressional District boundaries are determined at a state level where the Republicans have been doing pretty well in recent years and control most state legislatures.
So it is entirely possible that on the first Tuesday in November that Mr Trump see that he can finish off his first term with his party still in control of both houses. That would be something of an achievement.
I’m expecting that in the the coming months the betting on this to be quite extensive and certainly will be the biggest political betting markets of 2018.