As the chart, showing the Clinton-Obama fight in terms of the implied probabilities of odds on UK betting markets, illustrates the events of the past week have had an impact but not that much. A number of visitors have expressed surprise at my continuing view that Hillary is still in with a shout even though the pledged delegate totals are against her. Perhaps the best articulation of my nagging doubts about Obama’s chances comes from the US blogger who, for…
The current odds-in favourites in the two most active betting markets are Obama for the Democratic nomination and Boris for the London mayoralty. The former is at 0.4/1 and the latter at 0.68/1. I think that the prices are the wrong way round and that Boris has a substantially better chance of making it than Obama does. Of course with Boris everything depends on how Londoners vote on May 1st while with Obama the majority of state battles have taken…
How will the release of her documents change the race? After a very uncomfortable few days for Barack Obama the battle for the Democratic nomination has now moved on with the publication of thousands of documents from her White House years as first Lady from 1993 to 2001. These have been released under the freedom of information legislation and will be used to test her claims to “experience” and “being ready on Day One”. The ABC news report featured above,…
Why’s Boris winning the battle for LD second preferences? The above extract is from the detailed data on the YouGov website of this week’s London Mayoral poll showing Boris 12% ahead. What could be even more significant is the way the Brian Paddick second preferences are splitting:- Boris is winning 41% of them to Ken’s 34%. This is very much at odds with the way many on PBC have been seeing it and the assumption has been that Ken would…
Which is worse – electoral fraud or low turnouts? Communities minister, Hazel Blears, was faced with big dilemma when she appeared on BBC2’s Daily Politics this morning. How could the government go on resisting the individual voter registration in view of this week’s report from the Electoral Commission saying that “safeguards introduced to combat electoral fraud “are easily bypassed” because of weaknesses in the system? The head of standards, Sir Christopher Kelly, said that the current arrangement of one registration…
Launching the new market – betting on Prime Minister’s Questions The bookmakers, Ladbrokes has launched what could develop into a fascinating weekly betting market – What will be the topic of David Cameron’s first question at PMQs? Normally the most watched and most speculated about moment in the commons each week happens just after midday on Wednesdays when the opposition leader gets to his feet and starts the first of the six questions he is allowed to put to the…
Can the favourite balance the pressures and silence the critics? At 10.15 ET, 3.15pm in the UK, Barack Obama will rise to make what could be the speech that determines whether he gets the nomination or not. The title “Race, Politics, and Unifying our Country” says it all and all eyes will be on Philadelphia where the event is taking place. This is how the excellent Politico site is setting the scene: “..He is now facing a full-blown and fast-moving…
The Tories get eight seats nearer a majority on the spreads Welcome again to the high-risk high-reward world of Commons seat spread betting where serious political gamblers trade the number of seats that the parties will get at the general election as though they were stocks and shares. When we last looked at this on March 7th the Tory spreads were 299-305 seats; Labour was at 269-275 and the Lib Dems at 47-50. so the Tories have moved up eight…