Trump’s attack on voting by post might be making his defeat more likely

Trump’s attack on voting by post might be making his defeat more likely

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New polling suggests he’s creating a problem for his party The huge attacks on postal voting that we are hearing from the White House at the moment could in fact lead to fewer Trump supporters actually voting than Biden ones. With the pandemic still sweeping large parts of the US many individual states have been prepared for many more voters to want to cast their ballots in the November 3rd election without exposing themselves to the risk that going to…

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Team Biden now says he won’t be announcing his VP choice until just before the convention

Team Biden now says he won’t be announcing his VP choice until just before the convention

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The screengrab from CBS news above includes just about all the women who have been been linked with being Joe Biden’s running mate for the November 3rd presidential election. There had been hints from Biden team that an announcement could have been made this last weekend but now we hear that we have got to wait. My guess is that it will be deferred until the couple of days before the Democratic convention is due to start on August 18th….

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Some succour for Trump: Exactly four years ago today Betfair punters rated Hillary Clinton’s chances a lot higher than they do Joe Biden’s today

Some succour for Trump: Exactly four years ago today Betfair punters rated Hillary Clinton’s chances a lot higher than they do Joe Biden’s today

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The chart atop this thread is from exactly four years ago showing that Betfair punters were effectively saying Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the 2016 election were 72%, as we can see in the chart below Biden’s chances are around 62%. I’ve written in the past the terrible predictive abilities of the betting markets when it comes to politics, perhaps we might see that again, after all on election night Hillary Clinton’s chances went north of 90%. Perhaps the value…

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Some Trump (sore) loser bets

Some Trump (sore) loser bets

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StarSports have some markets up on what Trump might do about the 2020 election. I’m not touching the 8/1 on the 2020 election not to take place given the constitutional and legal impediments make it close to impossible to delay the election, even if Trump had a pliable House and Senate. The likes of Mitch McConnell have made it clear they won’t back a delay to the election. The 3/1 on Trump losing the election and refusing to leave office…

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Opinium’s Tory lead down from 26% at the start of Starmer’s LAB leadership to 3% tonight

Opinium’s Tory lead down from 26% at the start of Starmer’s LAB leadership to 3% tonight

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This is the closest for LAB in any poll since GE2019 In the first poll by Opinium after Starmer became LAB leader the Tories were on 55% and LAB on 29%. Tonight’s weekly poll from the firm for the Observer has CON 41: LAB 38: LD 6%. That is a remarkable change in less than four months and will be seen as a real vindication of Starmer’s approach to the job since he became leader on April 4th. Of course…

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Schools reopening has to be at the heart of the Covid plan. Everything else is ad hoc tinkering

Schools reopening has to be at the heart of the Covid plan. Everything else is ad hoc tinkering

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As ever, there’s a lack of strategic thinking to the government’s response Lockdown began in the UK on 24 March because the governments mandated it but not really because they chose to. There were many reasons propelling politicians to that decisions, from the mounting numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths to the examples being set abroad. What’s easily forgotten though is the extent to which the lockdown was in no small part a legal regulation of something that was already…

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