A value bet at the current 33%

Apart from choosing the president next week there are a whole host of other contests taking place in the US and I’ve been looking at some to see if I can find interesting betting opportunities.

One of the fiercest and most expensive battles is going on for the Senate seat in South Carolina where the controversial long-standing Republican, Lindsey Graham is trying to fend off a furious high budget campaign by the Democrats to defeat him.

Graham has built up a reputation as one of Trump’s most loyal and prominent backers which is all rather different from what he was saying during the primary campaign five years ago when he was totally hostile to the man who would become president.

Part of his success is that has never been burdened by feeling the need to be consistent by what he has said in the past if that’s what current ultra-partisan politics demand. Thus in the final months of the Obama administration he made a big point of saying that he would never back the the replacement of a supreme Court nominee ahead of a presidential election. Yet now he has been one of the leading supporters of the current nominee who is about to be approved by the Senate.

All this has made him an easy target as the above Democratic ad against him reflects.

Months ago his re-election position looked impregnable and he was pretty certain of holding on. But things have changed as the campaign for November’s elections has developed and Democrats have scented victory in a possible blue wave. There is a serious chance that he might lose and the latest survey from a quality pollster has him 2% behind.

So far Betfair punters are staying with Graham. I am betting on the Democrat. At current odds he is a value bet.

Mike Smithson