As the polls converge so do the prices At the top there is a collage of some of the main figures in the race to become the Republican nominee for the 2008 White House race – a contest that at one stage looked relatively simple but is getting more complicated by the day. The chart shows the Betfair prices converted into an implied probability to reflect the changes in punter interest over the past year. The only one thing that…
Will the Obama drug smear rebound on Clinton? There’s one dominant theme that emerges whenever Hillary’s chances in the Democratic race are being assessed – the so-called “legendary brilliance of the Clinton machine”. But is it really up to that much? Are we being sold a line in order that nothing should impede the view that Hillary’s eventual success is inevitable? Certainly the events of the past day or so do little to inspire confidence. The big news items in…
Tied for second on Betfair and average 17 points ahead in the last two Iowa polls One of my first introductions to betting was John McCririck’s book on the subject which came out in the early 1990s. A concept that he mentions, which will be familiar to many users of pb, is that of the “steamer”, a runner whose price shortens dramatically – although as I’m sure that PtP and other racing experts will testify, simply because a horse is…
Will the Winfrey endorsement help in the battle for women voters? This weekend the talk show host and arguably the second most famous woman in America, Oprah Winfrey, is joining Barack Obama on a three state campaign tour in a move that seems to have been designed to eat into Hillary Clinton’s commanding poll position amongst women voters. She’ll speak in support of the black senator from Illinois at mass campaign rallies in three of the states to decide first…
FT REPORT A finger on the political pulse by Ross Tieman, Financial Times – Published: Dec 07, 2007 Mike Smithson is on a roll. Britain’s foremost political spread betting aficionado is profiting from the opportunity bonanza offered by political upsets in the UK and the US presidential race. “It’s been a great autumn,” he says. “I have got a hefty wadge that has been transferred into my bank account. Since October, I have done about £6,000 [of profits].” You can’t…
Is he really the man the Democrats fear most? It was back in mid-August that we first looked at the chances of GOP contender and former Governor of Arkansas, Mick Huckabee. At the time the unique element in his background was that he was born and brought up in the same small town as Bill Clinton. Since then Huckabee, whose dramatic slimming story (see picture), has endeared him to many in the most obese country in the world, has gone…
Will Iowa be a springboard in both nomination races? With just one month and one day to go before the first test of opinion in the 2008 White House race new opinion polls put Barack Obama ahead amongst Democrats and the former governor of Arkansas ahead in the Republican race. Both have gambled heavily on doing well in the Iowa state caucuses which traditionally start the process of the parties selecting their nominees. The social conservative who was born in…
Could Hillary’s campaign be impeded by the first state to decide? The main headline overnight on the ABC news in the US is a poll it commissioned with the Washington Post on the state of opinion in Iowa – which on January 3rd will become the first state to make its decisions on the contenders for the 2008 White House race. In the Democrat race the black senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, is recorded as being in the top position…