We’ve all forgotten (what with the excitement of Starmer v Sunak), but the US Presidential election continues… and on Betfair exchange, Trump has moved into a commanding lead. Looking at these odds, what stand out to me is not that Trump is odds on (we can argue whether he or Biden should be narrow favorite), but just how big the gap. The polls remains pretty static: Biden and Trump are neck and neck. The Republicans have an advantage in the…
• See “The Wikipedia Elections Edit War”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVIl_DJl5NU INTRODUCTION During the Measurement series I have argued that concepts we believe to be universal and eternal are simply not. I discussed the limitations of political positions and the definition of elites, and those articles were fairly straightforward. But now let’s look at a thing that we all think we understand and yet don’t: the concept of a political party. THE LIST See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertas_Spain See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_List_(Italy) The simplest form of…
Unless Starmer or Sunak soil themselves on stage I expect very little change to the market. TSE
Prior to Donald Trump’s conviction there was polling showing that a significant number of Americans wouldn’t vote for a convicted felon and this polling is an artefact of that. I expect polling like this will go further south for Trump once we get to his sentencing hearing. TSE
One thing I remember about the YouGov MRPs from 2017 and 2019 is the first ones were closer to the actual results and I wonder if that trend will continue in 2024? These MRPs were conducted before Farage’s announcement, like Sir John Curtice I think is ultimately sub-optimal for the Tories. TSE
Like many on here, I have spent some time sifting the constituency markets looking for value bets. Boundary changes mean that Ordnance Survey’s excellent Election Maps site is required in addition to Wikipedia. I’ve generally stayed away from the Conservative-Labour battlegrounds and focussed on seats where it’s not clear who will be the main challenger to the Conservatives or the SNP. However, I have found two seats that provide interesting case studies for how our politics have realigned in the…
This shows the betting on Betfair overall majority market over the last three and a half a years. We can see a Labour majority traded as low as an 8.3% chance in May 2021, now they are a 91% chance. I find it amusing that NOM is now as low as Labour’s lowest chance of winning a majority. TSE
The Opinium poll must really sting for the Tories given how they generally have been the most favourable pollster for the Tories. If this is the beginning of a trend with Opinium then last night’s MRP might turn out to be close. TSE