How the battle shaped up It’s quite a shock, looking at the chart showing the implied probabilities of becoming president, that just a year ago the aggregate chance of their success as rated by UK punters was put at a paltry 13%. The final play-off on November 4th 2008, as we were all the pundits were telling us at the time, was going to be between Hilary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Both McCain and Obama were helped enormously by massive…
Learn from the costly lessons of 2004 Four years ago a lot of punters lost a lot of money by reading too much into the leaks and then the official exit polls themselves. This is a note that has been issued by John McCain’s head of polling – Bill McInturff – which I am reproducing in full. For the record I have decided not to bet at all today. In 2004 I came close to losing a small fortune when…
Should Westminster heed John Curtice’s words? While we wait for the polling stations to open in America let’s focus for three or four hours on the political situation in the UK and some timely words from Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University in today’s Independent. Under a headline “Banks bailout fails to boost Labour ratings” Curtice is quoted as saying: “..The mood of new-found optimism that seems to have enveloped the party at Westminster in recent weeks certainly seems to…
Is there money to be made guessing the timing? After paying out on winning Obama bets a fortnight ago the Irish bookmaker, PaddyPower, has made another betting move which could infuriate those who still harbour hopes that somehow the polls are wrong and that 72 year old Senator from Arizona can win tomorrow. They’ve opened betting on the timing of his concession speech- which is clearly linked very closely to the time-table of state results that we will see overnight….
Do the SNP justify their odds-on status? A week ago I suggested here that the 7/4 Labour price that was then available was a good value bet and was where my money was going. My reading at the time was that this was a 50-50 chance so odds greater than evens represented value. Well we’ve moved on a week, we’ve had a so-called “Glenrothes poll”, and I’ve had chance to consult the person I most trust to read Scottish politics….
If Obama wins big will UK pollsters have to change? The chart is from Nate Silver’s excellent fivethirtyeight.com and shows the Obama leads from the major national White House polls colour-coded according to whether the firms do or do not include cellphone users in their samples. You guessed it – the ones in yellow did while the one in grey restrict their samples to people who could by standard land-lines. There has long been a debate on both sides of…
Nationals could oust Helen Clark’s Labour in New Zealand With the election in Japan now being postponed, next Saturday’s election in New Zealand might now be one of the last significant elections of the autumn, with Romania and Ukraine still to come. The Nationals have led in the opinion polls since the middle of 2006, although their lead over the Labour government of Helen Clark really took off in the first few months of 2007. In the middle of this…
Has the heart gone out of McCain supporters? One of the perils of being in the political prediction business is that what you write can come back to haunt you and I have made my fair share of wrong calls. But there is one prediction of which I take enormous pride – made here on the site just four months after Bush had been installed for his second term. In support of my argument on May 26th 2005 that people…