The battle for Florida: Where UK punters are betting that the polls are wrong

The battle for Florida: Where UK punters are betting that the polls are wrong

Above is the latest polling average for Florida from Nate Silver’s site where, as can be seen, Biden has been enjoying a small but significant lead. Yet when we look at the betting a different trend appears. This of the Betfair market from Betdata and Trump has been odds on favourite for quite some time. On the face of it a bet on Biden at anything longer than evens is great value – yet that doesn’t seem to be happening….

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Remember what happened at WH2004 when Guardian readers advised Ohio voters not to vote for Bush

Remember what happened at WH2004 when Guardian readers advised Ohio voters not to vote for Bush

Seeing how close the current battle is in Ohio is a reminder to me of the effort by the Guardian at WH2004 to try to influence the election in this key swing state. The above is one of the thousands of reactions were received during the when the Guardian encouraged readers to write to voters in Clark County Ohio not to vote for Bush. This was, of course, in the aftermath of the Iraq war. This was another recation. This…

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Four days to go before election day and UK punters still rate Trump as a 34% chance

Four days to go before election day and UK punters still rate Trump as a 34% chance

On the biggest political betting market of all time, as the Smarkets chart shows, Biden is rated as a 65% chance which given the polling and the other election predictors looks amazingly generous. The latest forecast from the Economist has Biden at 95% while Nate Silver’s site has the former VP on 89%. His national polling average has Biden on 52% with Trump on 43.2%. The state polling is in the main looked good for Biden with Florida, where there…

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Trump’s only got himself to blame for doing so badly amongst women

Trump’s only got himself to blame for doing so badly amongst women

As I’ve argued before one of the huge hurdles that Trump has got to surmount is that the majority of those who vote in this election will be women and is perhaps the big reason why a late swing seems unlikely. All the data from recent US elections shows that there are more women than men, that they are significantly more likely to be registered and are much more likely to vote. At the midterms in 2018 10m more women…

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US Election Night: The Ten Counties We Need to Watch (Part One of Two)

US Election Night: The Ten Counties We Need to Watch (Part One of Two)

US Election Day (which is, I suppose, a misnomer given most votes have now been cast) is just five days away. Here – in order of reporting – are the first five of the ten counties punters need to watch in order to correctly estimate the likely election result. Dixville Notch – Tuesday about 5:05am UK timeFirst in the nation to report (probably). There will be seven to ten votes cast. Last time around, Clinton got 4, Trump 2, Romney…

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If the Democrats win the Presidency, the House and the Senate they’ll be in a position to make future elections easier

If the Democrats win the Presidency, the House and the Senate they’ll be in a position to make future elections easier

For starters Washington DC could be a state in it own right One of the oddities of US politics is that those who live in the capitol, Washington DC, are rated as second class citizens when it comes to elections. For they are unable to have voting representatives in the House and the Senate as is reflected in the slogan on car registration plates – see above. It used to be even worse than that and DC residents were not…

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YouGov finds that if given the chance Britain would overwhelmingly vote Trump out

YouGov finds that if given the chance Britain would overwhelmingly vote Trump out

With just six days to go until the US Election, a YouGov poll commissioned by Betfair finds 80% of those in the UK that expressed a preference would pick Biden. Just 20% would vote Trump. Trump does better with those who voted Leave in the referendum with 38% going for the incumbent. Amongst CON voters at GE2019 39% said they’d back Trump. That compares with the 99% support for Biden amongst those who voted for LAB or the LDs at…

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