2024 US Presidential Election Betting Thread
Ladies and gentleman, that time of the year is almost upon us. Republican debates start next month and I am looking forward to seeing all my friends again. It almost feels like school is back in session.
Some interesting candidates this year and wondering if Domahhhh is going to risk his entire net worth on a coinflip of a single election (getting -180 of course).
We didn't think it could get any worse but here we are. I wish the BOL to all competitors in this arena.
General article about some of it, obviously impossible to know how accurate the polls will be this cycle and past performance is not always an indication of future performance although obviously pollsters (the non partisan ones anyway) want accurate results or their product is worthless. Partisan polls for either party are obviously serving a different purpose (to push whatever narrative the party wants) so should be discounted
2022 polling was pretty good, previous few cycles were a miss, polling had Romney closer than he was, Clinton and Biden both up more than they ended up being in national popular vote but again pollsters adjust to try and get their samples to better match the electorate as a whole over time if they realise they're over or under sampling certain likely voters etc in hindsight so who knows if they'll be accurate or off this cycle and if they're off, by how much as there's a huge difference between a 1% polling error and a 4-5% polling error
Hypothetically if we go into election day with Harris up 3-4% or whatever, she's definitely the favourite, but it could be anything from a landslide (Harris wins national vote by 7% and sweeps the swing states or similar) or if there's a 3% gap in the other direction and Harris wins the popular vote by 1% and the electoral college is close or Trump edges it
If we go into election day with polls tied nationally, Trump's probably a fav due to electoral college math and the last two cycles polling errors but again past performance does not guarantee future performance in that the last time there was a black candidate for President in 2012, polling actually under-sampled Obama's support and over-sampled Romney's.
A lot will depend on turnout too. If turnout is low, conservatives tend to do well, if turnout is high, progressives tend to do well. The right needs to try and disillusion the left over Palestine etc and try and paint Harris as 'both parties are the same/bad' to try and get people that will never vote for a Republican to stay home. If youth turnout (or single female or black turnout) is super high, Republicans are ****ed. If they're super low, Democrats are ****ed.
I think it's going to come down to turnout again. Trump got 74m to Bidens 81m votes last time. USA has about 6m more citizens than last time, let's say 4m are eligible voters and 3m of them actually vote - i'd expect Trump gets about 74-75m votes again (i'm expecting him to be slightly less popular as a non incumbent and not running against a super old dude). If Harris matches Biden's number turnout wise, Trump won't win. Now turnout could be higher or lower with Trump out of office but i'd say if Trump gets to 80 million votes he's a favourite, by 70 million he loses in a massive landslide and loses all of the swing states. In 2016 it was 66m for Clinton 63m for Trump approximately, but Trump ran well expectation with where the votes landed even with Republicans EC advantage. If he loses the popular vote by 3 million or so he's probably a tiny dog, if he loses the popular vote by closer to the 7 million he lost to Biden by he isn't going to win but it could be anything from a 1-3 state victory to Harris sweeps the swing states depending on the distribution. By 8-10 million votes i'd expect Harris covers the -99.5 electoral votes line and wins 7/7 swing states. If Trump wins the popular vote outright I don't see a scenario where Harris wins the electoral college she would have to run way, way above expectation in the exact 270 electoral votes she needs (probably the midwest plus Nevada or ME district route) and massively underperform in the sun belt or similar
Anyway, none of this is particularly helpful but there are a ton of similar articles to the one I linked at the start of the post that discuss how pollsters are trying to change their methodology to get accurate samples. Polling was quite good in 2022 overall in that people expected the polls to underestimate Republican support and form a red wave and it never eventuated.
It's more likely that polling under-samples Trump voters than over-samples them but it's not impossible that the reverse is true or that the polls are accurate within a percentage point both of those are very possible as well.
If black or female turnout vs white male turnout is significantly higher or lower than expected or if young people show up in force to vote or don't show up at all it'll obviously have a huge impact
I think the biggest reason why Trump might not under poll as much as he did in 2016 and 2020 is a lot of public figures have come out in support of him and supporting him publicly isn't as frowned upon as it used to be.
Saw this map on Twitter recently based on Bloomberg polling. You liking this Swoop?
It's way too far out to mean anything but if Harris improves her position by a couple percent pre election day it's a realistic map
I'll be stacking some -64.5 at +4xx etc as well if the price keeps climbing and maybe some -99.5 too
By all means that map isn't a favourite or anything at this stage but it does hit over 20 percent imo
never thought i'd agree with swoop but here we are. there's no way you can treat each state as independent events. they're absolutely correlated and not in a small way. not to say they'll all go one way or another... 5-2 or 4-3 seems most likely... but you're a fish if you're calculating each state's odds as independent events.
Did you read my post? I specifically acknowledged that they were correlated.
We clearly agree that they're correlated but obviously disagree about how correlated they are
In the interview, Silver breaks down the latest numbers in swing states, warns against rapidly shifting media narratives, and addresses criticism of his model while lobbing some of his own on his former site, 538, which is now run by ABC News. Silver characterized the 538 model as “broken” during this election cycle and suggested, “I don’t think you can trust anything from that forecaster.”
Noting Nate Silver doesn't think 538 is useful this cycle, his current model makes it Harris 53% Trump 47% from the article
Long way to go though and feels like a good chance it breaks for one of the candidates a bit late, as it stands Harris slightly ahead in the polling by about 3% nationally but slightly closer in the swing states
thanks for the link. correct me if i'm wrong, but i found it rather uninformative in that they can't articulate why 2016/2020 polls failed. they say 2022 midterms polling were highly accurate, but simultaneously acknowledge there's probably something different when it comes to trump polling/turnout that they can't account for. they cite a greater diversity of polling types today but can't articulate why that's better (or even not worse) as traditional phone surveys have died. if this is the best case for why "this time is different" vs 2016 & 2020 i'm more confident than ever it will be more of the same.
In the interview, Silver breaks down the latest numbers in swing states, warns against rapidly shifting media narratives, and addresses criticism of his model while lobbing some of his own on his former site, 538, which is now run by ABC News. Silver characterized the 538 model as “broken” during this election cycle and suggested, “I don’t think you can trust anything from that forecaster.”
538 showed its true colors when they had biden as 50/50 a couple weeks after the june debate, citing incumbency and economy advantages. if you read both sites, nate is way more thoughtful about his model and i would bet my life he'd outperform them in the long run.
I think we can all agree the swing states are correlated, they won't be correlated perfectly but generally speaking if either candidate outperforms expectations by a few percent it'll be enough to sweep the swing states a lot, especially if either candidate improves their polling by a few percent by election day, like if Trump goes into election day tied in the popular vote he's a huge favourite and could go 6/7 or 7/7 in the swing states or if Harris goes in at +6 nationally she's a huge fav to do the same. I'd say Harris by like 1.5-2% is where the swing states do legitimately split, but if its a few percent either side of that good chance a -64.5 or -99.5 spread can cover
As Pennsylvania goes, so goes the nation.
Polymarket Electoral Map no tossups.
What do we think about the Nebraska senate race, is Osborn live? Poll showing him up 1 percent as an independent with no Dem running is interesting
It's actually super smart tactically for Dems to not field a candidate when there's a serious independent in a seat they otherwise can't win in a red state and the same would be true for Rs in blue states. I guess King and Sanders are technically independents but I'm reality they're Democrats without the D.
Would be crazy if the Ds hold the senate via Osborn winning in Nebraska and him siding with them on control of the chamber. Would also give him an insane amount of power holding the balance of power if a D is president and he's the 50th seat which is likely if Ds lose Montana and West Virginia and win every other seat they hold
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an utter collapse one month leading up to the election like Kammie-La has pulled. The Trump surge keeps continuing hourly in the markets.
I get why Kamala isn't connecting with people and all her issues as a candidate
What I don't really get is why in the last 48-72 hours did the market decide she needs to be 43-44% instead of 51%? seems abrupt and acute
What's the possibility that the Trump campaign is using funds to move the line/paint the tape? It's pretty well established that people want to vote for the winner, so if they think that'll be Trump, it can become a self-fulfilling notion. This is why candidates talk about polls so much and highlight the ones where they're doing well and try to discredit the ones where they're losing—voters like being on the "right side" of the election, as determined by the outcome. But I don't have a good sense of how much money is needed to move these lines across all these sites. (Although it's possible that moving the line at what people think is the sharpest book would then induce bettors to move the line at the other books in a steam chase.)
I'd think in this particular case that the idea Trump is the fav would seek to energize the Dems more, similar to the 2022 midterms
I would assume it's a combination of the Greens candidate siphoning off Muslim voters over Gaza one issue stuff that would otherwise vote Democratic combined with 'Trump hasn't **** himself in public in over a week in a debate'
Electoral-vote has a few states tied off new polling that were lean D, it's still a flip there but the market is just assuming Trump is going to overperform his polling because he did the last two times, granted entirely different election pre-various indictments, Jan 6, Trump being older, Trumps' opponent not pushing 80 or being Hillary Clinton, etc
Still too soon to know who's going to win as crazy as that is, but I do think the chances of either candidate winning 6-7/7 of the swing states is higher than the market thinks it is.
Muslims voting third party in Michigan with Stein backed by Russian money trying to siphon off their votes over Gaza is probably the only thing I can think of
Meanwhile Trump spent the day rambling about Biden's beautiful circles and somehow that was an above average campaign week.
Is it that much of a stretch that an empty pantsuit that believes in nothing, stands for nothing and says nothing isnt doing too hot in the polls?
people arb predictit/kalshi/poly so johnnys point still plausible. the steam has also followed trump-favorable swing state polls though
Off the mark as always.
Elon tweeted about Polymarket and the MAGAs/crypto bros who follow him dumped money onto the site and moved the market.
You can see her odds crash on Oct 6th, right after Elon's tweet.
you think thats the first time someone with a big following has tweeted poly market odds?
although in general i believe PM has a right leaning bias and PI has a left leaning bias although seems to be narrowing closer we get to the finish line
the main reason for the move is her recent swing state polling hasnt been good (and its assumed trump will outperform the polls because he did in '16/'20)
my question was more why now this past week has this moved/sentiment changed?
