McCain is simply too old With John McCain looking set for victory in the New Hampshire primary tomorrow night there’s been a big move towards him in the betting and he is now the solid favourite for the Republican nomination. I like McCain, I think he has acquitted himself well, but I can’t but believe that his age, 72 in August, is going to be a big issue which will be magnified if he’s facing Obama who is still in…
“Four Daves” – Con 37 (-3), Lab 33 (+1), Lib Dem 19 (+3) Clegg gives Lib Dems a three-point boost Cameron leads 44-40 on best PM Brown only six points ahead on “strong leader” UK politics has been overshadowed by the dramatic events across the Atlantic, but tonight’s Populus poll in the Times shows the state of the parties as Parliament returns from the Christmas break. Nick Clegg, who’ll face his first PMQs on Wednesday, gets a three-point boost for…
McCain has 4% margin in GOP race There have been more big moves on the Democratic candidate markets following a new poll by Gallup for USA TODAY that shows that Hillary Clinton is 13% behind amongst New Hampshire voters who will take part in the first full primary of the 2008 White House Race, in New Hampshire, tomorrow. Obama is at 41% with Clinton on 28% and Edwards on 19%. This is by far the biggest margin that we have…
Who is going to come out top this year? Politics in the first few days of 2008 has already burst into life with the Iowa caucuses – so what will happen in the rest of the year? Back by popular request, test your forecasting skills once again with the PBC prediction competition. Due to the likely number of entries, the competition this year will be in spreadsheet format, which will mean that collating and marking can be greatly speeded up…
Frank Luntz gets the reaction of NH voters Once again it is the fights for the main party nominations in the 2008 White House race that dominate the political betting news. After Thursday night’s Iowa caucuses the next big decision point is New Hampshire where the first proper primaries take place on Tuesday. The Democrat betting has seen big changes over the past 24 hours with Hillary Clinton moving from her odds-on favourite position to second favourite across almost all…
There’s been quite a lot of activity on the US election this morning and the main development has been a switch of favourites for the Democratic nomination on Intrade – the Irish based exchange which is focused very much on the US market. Intrade’s prices are presented on a scale of 0-100. At 1420 the last trades on the market were Obama 51 and Clinton 48. In the UK the Betfair price has tightened considerably on Obama and has eased…
The betting markets stick with Hillary – just The UK national dailies that used to be called “the broadsheets” get their first chance this morning to dissect Thursday night’s events in Iowa and they devote page after page to the outcome. If there is any UK political news about it’s hard to find and clearly there’s going to be a high level of interest until well after the New Hampshire outcome on Tuesday night. Whatever the results in the “granite…
Focus on the South West The counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, and Avon will generate some of the most interesting contests at the next election. This is because each of the three main parties is well-represented in this region, and because so many of the seats are marginals. Unusually, there is considerable support for UKIP here, who saved their deposit in 15 out of 38 seats in 2005. In 2005, the Liberal Democrats achieved pole position here, with 15…