In praise of Nate Silver – the election and polling analyst for the New York Times

In praise of Nate Silver – the election and polling analyst for the New York Times

Comments 0 Comment

Nate Silver final day forecast – an 86.3% probability for Barack Obama. goo.gl/r5e5W twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 5, 2012 Tomorrow could be the day that his approach is vindicated One person who has had to face an extraordinary amount of abuse over the past fortnight has been the New York Times election analyst, Nate Silver. The basic problem is that his complex statistical model has been showing that Obama has a good chance of victory predictions that have…

Read More Read More

Romney goes into the final day of the campaign without being ahead in any of the closing national polls

Romney goes into the final day of the campaign without being ahead in any of the closing national polls

Comments 0 Comment

The latest batch of final national polls at RCP all have either Obama ahead or the race tied twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 5, 2012 Obama also has the edge in many of the closing state polls After a period when we were getting a different picture from the national polls compared with the state ones the overall view of tomorrow’s election is becoming clearer. The president has made small but significant gains in the latest batch of final…

Read More Read More

US-based punters continue to rate Romney’s chances much better than Betfair ones

US-based punters continue to rate Romney’s chances much better than Betfair ones

Comments 0 Comment

The Intrade market with its large US customer base has Romney 10% higher than Betfair. see chart. twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 4, 2012 Betfair Romney price shows just a small dip in past 24 hours. See chart. twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 4, 2012 Betfair, of course goes to great lengths to ensure that people in the US cannot use its services. I’ve not moved my own betting – still make the same profits whichever one wins….

Read More Read More

Meet Jon Husted – the Republican in charge of voting in Ohio and the reason why I am not going all in on Obama being re-elected

Meet Jon Husted – the Republican in charge of voting in Ohio and the reason why I am not going all in on Obama being re-elected

Comments 0 Comment

Meet Jon Husted, boss of voting in Ohio & the reason why I am not going all in on Obama goo.gl/D4Owx twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 4, 2012 Punters should factor in the Ohio legal battles There are huge legal battles taking place in Ohio against moves by John Husted, the Republican Secretary of State and the man in charge of the state’s crucial elections on Tuesday. He’s already caused controversy by trying to limit early voting and this…

Read More Read More

David Herdson asks: What odds an electoral tie?

David Herdson asks: What odds an electoral tie?

Comments 0 Comment

David Herdson asks: What odds an electoral tie? goo.gl/7d21p twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 4, 2012 If it happened we could a Romney-Biden pairing? If the US presidential polling is correct, then Barack Obama is heading for a second term, on a much closer result than his first. It may be that Romney even wins the national vote but Obama’s narrow but consistent lead in key swing states would give him the 270+ Electoral College votes he needs for…

Read More Read More

US punters are moving away from Romney in Ohio

US punters are moving away from Romney in Ohio

Comments 0 Comment

Intrade price on Romney in Ohio drops 10% in two days. See chart twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 3, 2012 State polls have Obama widening the gap Mike Smithson For the latest polling and political betting news from the US and UK Follow @MSmithsonPB

David Herdson: Why there’ll be no EU referendum anytime soon

David Herdson: Why there’ll be no EU referendum anytime soon

Comments 0 Comment

David Herdson argues that there’ll be no EU referendum anytime soon. goo.gl/L7flQ twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 3, 2012 Where do we stand after the big vote? The Coalition’s reform requiring all future EU treaties that transfer power to the EU to be put to a referendum was intended both as a brake on UK involvement in EU integration, and as a landmine under the kind of government that might be inclined to do that – either they’d have…

Read More Read More