One of the reasons I have been comfortable about laying Kemi Badenoch in the race to succeed Rishi Sunak is that she’s a lightweight, as Equalities Minister she was ready to jump on any Culture Wars bandwagon but was a near Trappist monk with her silence on other substantive issues such as the Post Office scandal. This clip emerging reassures me about my betting strategy, if she makes it to the final two her past comments will not go down…
One factor that may complicate swing in key states this year is the number of abortion ballots that are going on. For good or ill, the Dobbs v Jackson ruling by the Supreme Court has made this into a very significant political battleground. We have some evidence that this is not to the advantage of Republicans. In 2022 six states had abortion related constitutional referendums: California, Michigan, and Vermont to guarantee the right to an abortion; Kansas and Kentucky to…
I still think this is Robert Jenrick’s election to lose but James Cleverly remains a value bet in my view, I have found Tom Tugendhat’s campaign underwhelming and both Cleverly and Mel Stride could pick up the support that people thought would go to Tom Tugendhat. I am feel confident that my previous lays of Kemi Badenoch will prove profitable. TSE
At the 2020 election Trump won North Carolina by 1.34% so a poll showing a tie isn’t that out of kilter but receiving fewer than 50% of the vote in Ohio when he received 53.27% is again within a normal bit of statistical variation. I will need to see more reputable polling to back these polls up but if Trump is at risk of losing the 33 electoral college votes that North Carolina and Ohio gave him in 2020 then…
Last week I explained why I thought Donald Trump’s lead on the economy still made him the favourite to win in November however if that lead evaporates then I fear he is as doomed as a passenger flying with Air France on a Boeing jet. As ever this is just one poll, we need to see more polls to see if this is indeed a harbinger rather an outlier. Yesterday my thinking was that if Trump’s price went North of…
One thing that is very uncertain in this parliament is that when Labour become unpopular (as all governments do) where will their support go? It has the potential to splinter in several directions, to the Tories, Reform, the Lib Dems, in North Britain to the SNP, and my expectation a lot of that support could end up with the Greens. But the influx of the new Greens could see the Green support fracture. This analysis is skewed to an England…
I think we are close to the point where Donald Trump is value. Not picking Josh Shapiro appears to have not harmed Harris in Pennsylvania. TSE
PBers who were around for the 2020 US presidential election will remember that no pollster garnered as much ‘attention’ as Trafalgar with their quite frankly unbelievable polls which often showed Trump was on course for a landslide victory in the electoral college. So in 2024 it is quite interesting as the above tweet notes that this time Trafalgar have Trump barely ahead in the swing states. In Trafalagar’s defence their polls this time aren’t as out of line with other…