Poll puts Obama ahead for the first time

Poll puts Obama ahead for the first time

A new poll tonight from the US firm, Rasmussen, has put the black senator from Illionois, Barack Obama, ahead for the first time in the race for the Democratic nomination. The pollster notes that most of the survey took place before last week’s TV debate of all the democrat challengers in south Carolina. A general view was that Hillary Clinton came out of that on top. Rasmussen has been the most Obama-friendly pollster for some time and this latest survey…

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What’s a good outcome for the Lib Dems on Thursday?

What’s a good outcome for the Lib Dems on Thursday?

Will Ming’s party consolidate its second place position? With the big battle going on in Scotland and the attention on the Labour leadership the Lib Dems have been struggling, even more than usual, to get the attention of the media in the run-up to Thursday. That’s nothing new and is not necessarily a problem because local elections, where you can put a huge amount of resource in to key ward contests, suit their style of campaigning. Unlike Labour, which is…

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How should we judge the performance of Team Cameron?

How should we judge the performance of Team Cameron?

What will be the Tory vote share on Thursday? There’s no doubt that all the parties will be spinning like mad in the next couple of days to talk up the prospects of their opponents and to dampen down expectations about themselves. We have this silly game every year so that whatever the outcome all the parties can claim that they have done better than expected. Yawn…Yawn. But what performances should we be expecting and what, in particular, will be…

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Betting strategies for a big political week

Betting strategies for a big political week

How prices change in the final few days One of the features covered in my book “The Political Punter” is what happens to betting markets in the final few days before an election when the small body of knowledgeable political gamblers is joined by many in the wider betting community. They tend to follow favourites resulting in the prices of the most fancied options getting tighter and others moving out. So according to the book “If the person or party…

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How much can we trust the Scottish polls?

How much can we trust the Scottish polls?

Have the “funny surveys” been over-stating Labour? The table has been adapted from Wikipedia and shows the incredible variation in the polling surveys of the regional or list vote ahead of next Thursday’s crucial election for the Scottish Parliament. On the one hand there have been the surveys by those pollsters which are listed as members of the British Polling Council which are required as part of their membership to follow strict transparency rules. Within two working days of a…

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How will Labour do on Thursday?

How will Labour do on Thursday?

How well can the PBC community predict the elections? How many Labour members will be elected to the Scottish Parliament? (50 in 2003) 51-129 seats 46-50 seats 41-45 seats 36-40 seats 31-35 seats 0-30 seats    How many Labour members will be elected to the Welsh Assembly? (30 in 2003) 31-60 seats 27-30 seats 24-26 seats 21-23 seats 0-20 seats    What will be the net change in Labour’s total of local council seats as a result of Thursday elections?…

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Is the gap too wide for Sego?

Is the gap too wide for Sego?

Should Sarky backers worry about polling creep? Taking the polls as a whole it’s clear that there has been a slight erosion in Nicholas Sarkozy’s lead since his triumph in the first round of voting last Sunday. This has been reflected in the betting in the UK. In the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s voting Ségolène Royal moved out to about 3.7/1. That’s been edging back gently and is now at 3.1/1. If the daily poll from Ipsos – the pollster…

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Who’ll stand aside – Meacher or McDonnell?

Who’ll stand aside – Meacher or McDonnell?

The main development in the Labour leadership this morning is the above story about a possible deal between the rival left-wing candidates, Michael Meacher and John McDonnell that only one of them would stand in the coming contest. For punters the question is which. For whoever it is then the chances are that that person will get the nominations and be in a position to challenge. Almost certainly the agreed candidate would see a tightening of their price and that…

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