There’s been a fair bit of chatter around lately about momentum in favour of Donald Trump, but by any reasonable metric the situation remains as it’s been since the dust settled a few weeks after Joe Biden’s withdrawal. Namely, poll aggregates have Kamala Harris up by three points nationally, which translates into an effective dead heat from election forecasts. A narrowing in Nate Silver’s probability forecast from around 56-44 to 50-50 has no doubt been influential, but the fundamental calculus is unchanged: the polls will very likely prove to have been out in one direction or another, and whoever they are underselling will take home the prize. For what it’s worth, The Economist’s and FiveThirtyEight’s models have ticked back a little to Harris over the past few days after narrowing to almost dead level a week ago, respectively putting her at 54% and 56%.
Considerably more depth on all this is available from Adrian Beaumont’s latest for The Conversation. The monthly Resolve Strategic polls for Nine Newspapers have been asking their Australian respondents who they would vote for if they could or would, consistently finding the fifty-first state to be deep blue: the latest has Kamala Harris at 52%, up two on last month, with Donald Trump down four to 21%.
Bellwether says:
Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 6:45 pm
Don’t tell me – you’re ghost writing for John Grisham?
FUBAR – no idea who John Grisham is, I have heard the name.
Democracy died in 2000 when Bush II used the courts to steal Florida’s EC votes and by extension an entire presidential election.
According to the introduction above, poll aggregates in favour of Kamala translate into an effective dead heat. Nat Silver’s probability forecast has also tightened to 50 – 50.
There is no dead heat or tightening on the betting markets:
Trump 58.5%
Harris 41.5%
Trump has firmed into the shortest quote of election betting so far since Biden was replaced.
With the election to be held in 20 days, the Republicans have surged to a clear lead.
Centre – you didn’t include 538.
Bellwether
The Economist and FiveThirtyEight have swung back to Harris. Why bother typing it lol
Centre missing the sophistications in the betting…
Polymarket, one of the leading political betting markets that is based offshore and partially funded by Peter Thiel, gave Trump about a 60 percent chance off winning the election as of Wednesday, while Harris had a 40 percent chance of victory. Betting odds have fluctuated throughout the election and may change based on current events and polls that could affect the outcome of the race.
But one trader has appeared to be influencing the market by betting millions of dollars on a Trump victory.
As of late Tuesday, the trader, only known as Fredi9999, has purchased more than 15 million shares, valued at $8.7 million, betting that Trump would win the election.
They have also purchased more than 3 million shares betting that Trump would win the popular vote, and nearly 1.5 million shares that Trump would carry Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state that is viewed as the most likely tipping-point state this cycle. All told, Fredi9999’s position is valued at more than $14 million on the platform.
Who this trader may be, as well as why they may be betting so much on the presidential race, remains unknown. Polymarket is a crypto-based prediction market largely out of the reach of U.S. regulators, and its users are anonymous. Fredi9999’s profile provides few details about their identity, just that they joined the platform in June 2024. They’ve been adding to their positions, in roughly $500 bets, as recently as Wednesday morning.
Laura Beers, a professor of history and expert on political betting at American University, told Newsweek there are numerous reasons an anonymous trader would be betting so much money on a Trump victory. For instance, there is historical precedent for using the idea of betting on politics “as a hedge.”
“If Fredi9999 has business interests that stand to lose from a Trump victory, they could be betting on one to offset those potential future loses,” she said. “There is evidence that British bettors used election markets this way in the early 20th century.”
However, she noted that the trader “has been involved in significant in-and-out trading,” suggesting “that they might be seeking to profit from market manipulation of their own devising, or just to profit from taking advantage of what they see as temporary shifts in the market.”
The Commodities and Futures Trading Commission has previously warned about the potential for manipulation in betting markets, which were illegal in the U.S. until recently.
https://www.newsweek.com/who-polymarket-mystery-trader-fredi9999-1969646
Yay Centre
More loading up on Harris/Walz for me!
This is pennies from heaven!
You keep up promoting Trumps price for the mugs.
Yee hah!
Ps You don’t work for Sportsbet do you?
Another record day of early voting in GA
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/16/2277328/-Another-record-day-of-early-voting-in-GA?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
“On the second day of early voting in Georgia, 259,887 more ballots have been added to the pile. This represents the second record-breaking day after Tuesday’s tally that broke the prior record by 242 percent. According to the office of the Georgia Secretary of State, these first two days have matched a full 10% of the total 2020 vote. Two days! 10%! Yikes!
There has been some debate about what these numbers means. County-level data for the day one numbers were released last night and it offered some…strange details. For instance, the ABC vote tracker shows that of those votes, 48% were Democratic, 45% were Republican, and 7% were “other”. That seems good for Harris. On the other hand, red counties over-performed 2020 results and blue counties under-performed them. That seems not so good for Harris. And yet, there was also an 8-point gender gap, with women bringing 54% of the vote. That seems good for Harris. And regardless of all that, we won’t know how anyone actually voted until November 5th.
Conclusion: it’s too early to conclude anything other than voter enthusiasm is clearly off the charts in Georgia. “
And the NYTimes has this… the crypto bro crew just splashing some of their NFT winnings.
Skeptics wonder if someone has been trying to move these markets. Miller, who predicted a Harris victory a month ago, wrote on his website that he had “identified no single event that explains” the sudden shift in Trump’s odds.
Some observers have pointed to a number of recent big pro-Trump bets, including by one pseudonymous user on Polymarket. Others have cited posts by Elon Musk on Oct. 7 promoting a Trump lead in prediction markets, suggesting that he may have encouraged other Trump supporters to jump in. Election Betting Odds, a market results aggregator, shows that Trump’s lead jumped around then.
(Apologies if already been posted)
Redfield & Wilton on the ‘Big 7’ October 12-14
4 ties
1 x 1% lead for Harris (Wis)
2 x 2% leads for Trump (Ariz & N Car)
So essentially 7 dead heats!
Redfield & Wilton also show Trump up 6% in Florida and Harris up 8% and 4% in Minnesota and New Mexico, respectively.
All polls based on ‘likely voters’
Very little change from earlier R & W polls, very marginal movement to Trump in a couple of them.
RCP podcast yesterday discussed the betting markets. Their view on it was that it’s not data driven, and is reactive to minute by minute ‘issues’. A politician stumbles on an answer, the betting markets move, a candidate has a cold, the betting markets move, a rumor of bad blood inside a campaign the betting markets move. It’s punters ( a tiny tiny subset of the population which is heavily gender based) reacting to daily issues and not deeply held beliefs about how a country should be run by a broad cross section of society.
Not saying they don’t get it right or that they are wrong, but aint a believer that they’re capturing the whole picture.
Finally, some wise words from Reddit..
I have never seen this level of total nonsense perpetuated by the betting odds markets. Ever since Elon referenced Polymarket in his tweet, I have concluded that the betting markets are highly skewed toward Trump supporters who are predominantly men, and should not be used as a reliable aggregate when analyzing the current state of the race this close to election day. In other words, degenerate gamblers are flooding the zone by buying up shares, responding to highly skewed or weighted polls from pro-republican groups, and basically coping at the highest of levels to push Trump to a lead and then claim fraud if he loses because “Polymarket said he would win”.
This is total blasphemy considering where the race stands right now. Claiming Trump is at a nearly 60 to 40 percent margin in PA on Polymarket when no highly reputable poll in the past two weeks has suggested he is leading while Harris recently got a +4 NYT/Philly Inquirer PA poll a clear sign of mental illness or delusion imo. You could bring up the TIPP/American Greatness PA poll showing Trump at +1 in PA but their crosstabs were exposed for clear statistical malpractice if you read the polls objectively.
AND
This is a coordinated strategy by Trump campaign and billionaire surrogates to create the illusion that Trump is winning. They are flooding the zone with ludicrous Trump friendly polls that skew the average to make the race seem far tighter than it is. Whales are also manipulating betting markets by placing big bets on Trump. Much of this happened right after Elon Musk started tweeting about it. My guess is the odds will narrow significantly as the election nears. Other than that, there is absolutely no data that would suggest Harris isn’t the favorite. All of the top quality polls have her ahead in the swing states she needs to win, and early voting patterns suggest a huge Democratic turnout. Hope that helps!
I will say, as a species we do go looking to explain away the obvious when it doesnt gel with our chosen reality
BTsays
Those Redfield polls were posted last week – OBE
“BTsays
Those Redfield polls were posted last week – OBE”
OK sorry (NB only completed on Friday, guess you mean published over the weekend then)
NBC News
What weeks of early-voting data tell us about how Democrats and Republicans are turning out in 2024
As some battleground states start early voting, Virginia has been going for weeks. The data shows more interest in early voting from GOP areas this time.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/weeks-early-voting-data-tell-us-democrats-republicans-are-turning-2024-rcna175419
BTsays
538 has them at 13 October
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
Guys
NBC News
When I click on each state, I am getting Application error
“Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information).”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/early-vote
Did hackers hack this application?
“538 has them at 13 October
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/”
12-14 Oct it actually says, so end point Friday.
Fredi9999 is my kind of ATM
This is the beginning and the end of the story…
Polymarket, one of the leading political betting markets that is based offshore and partially funded by Peter Thiel 😐
FUBAR @ #107 Thursday, October 17th, 2024 – 6:49 pm
Don’t tell me, you’re trying to be supercilious. Not that you have to try that hard. 😐
Ven @ #120 Thursday, October 17th, 2024 – 6:58 pm
Nothing so sensational.
It crashes if/when you mouse over the map(s). Almost certainly they rolled out a poorly tested update with a dodgy event handler. Probably they’ll fix it in a day or so.
Not all billionaires are slavishly following Trump – Mark Cuban, who started Oracle and now owns the Dallas Mavericks NBA team like Kamala..
This is pennies from heaven!
Collecting free cash from MAGAt rocket surgeons because they believe Trump won is the sweetest, filthiest lucre of all.
Ok, I’m back, I can start replying to some of the posts…
Centre – I mention 538 because this is a f’ing psephological blog, not free advertising for Betfair.
Been There @ 7.34 pm
I am not promoting Trump’s price. I am reporting the odds as they stand, bet by real people not with monopoly money.
No, I do not work for any betting company. Although I do have sources 😉
I love it when ar speaks techy. 😉
Real people Centre?
Did you not read previous posts about this?
For a betting analyst you’re lacking something in your game.
I will address other posts this way:
No one individual is capable of manipulating the odds for this Presidential election. The volumes bet around the globe are too great.
There is no gender bias in the betting markets. Even if you were to INCORRECTLY assume that only the MAGA crowd bet, and they bet on Trump.
If you question the validity and accuracy of the betting market, and you like Kamala, I promise you, you can get set for any amount you like! 😉
Trump is your fav – with bookmakers fully aware of the way polls are playing. If you don’t like it…go and cry to your mommy.
On Rachel Maddow
FUBAR living up to the username as per usual.
When you get the head of the CDC on your show on March 31 and they say the below…
Then in FUBAR world, the host has to apologise in December when the science had moved.
Guess though we were still fighting the “bleach wars” in that 6 months though weren’t we. Experts and all that…
https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-director-data-vaccinated-people-do-not-carry-covid-19-2021-3
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky is touting new CDC data that suggests people who have been fully vaccinated almost never carry COVID-19.
During an MSNBC interview with Rachel Maddow on Monday, Walensky said: “Our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick, and that it’s not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real-world data.”
Bean says:
Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 12:59 pm
Stooge I don’t understand how any of what I said makes you think I want Trump to win. I’m just highlighting how Democrats have sacrificed some of their greatest electoral strengths in pursuit of appeasing the middle.
Electoral success requires the mobilisation of majorities. This explains Democratic practice. They want to win elections by assembling majorities….rather than by “appeasing” the occasional disaffected self-styled leftie.
Practically by definition, the greatest number of voters will be found in the middle. Group behaviour accounts for most of that. Parties have to try to appeal to these voters if they want to win. The Democratic Party has been very good at assembling numerical majorities, but the US system is inherently Reactionary. They need to win two-tier majorities in order to win power. The system is rigged against the Reformists. If you think they can they can win by foregoing potential support from Republican-leaning or Independent-identifying voters then you are very mistaken. Almost no-one in the US is willing to vote for candidates of ‘the left’. It’s not as if they’re deprived of the chance. Conspicuously leftist candidates run often. They invariably fail to win more than a handful of votes.
By joining the denunciation of the Democratic Party you are aligning with MAGA, who despise the Democrats and hope to incinerate them. You should ask yourself whether you too want to add to the pyre, or whether you’d also like to defeat MAGA-ism. This is the basic choice in the US. It has been so since the Tea Party revolt commenced during the Obama period. The Reactionaries are getting smarter. They have money. They have tech. They have a game plan. They have troopers. And they absolutely hate you.
Centre
Bookmakers don’t set the odds, flow of money does.
A lot of it is coming from dodgy sources.
Can’t you see that?
Anyway, no point arguing with you, you’re a global betting conglomerate person, see where that takes you.
Ven says:
Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 12:49 pm
”
toogesays:
Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 12:43 pm
Ven says:
Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 12:16 pm
I really want to vote against “progressive” parties in ….Australia for what they are doing in West Asia in general and Gaza in particular.
Australia has no influence whatsoever in these domains. None.
”
Stooge
ALP…. are aiding and abetting Netanyahu government.
This is disingenuous. Australian policy in relation to Israel has not changed since 1948, when that state was created by means of a UN mandate. Israel has been at war, one way or another, ever since. The current conflict in Gaza is causing very profound damage to Israel. No doubt about that. To that extent, Hamas are winning. Iran is winning.
Interestingly, the Sunni states have not joined the conflict. They would prefer that Israel prevails rather than that Iran prevails. So this conflict is also an expression of a dispute within Islam. It’s also a subset of the neo-imperialist aggression shown by Russia, who will have encouraged their proxy/ally, Iran, to encourage war with Israel and therefore set up conflict within the West…within Russia’s opponents.
To suppose that all of this should be left at Labor’s door is just fanciful. Labor cannot yet run the numbers in the Senate, let alone change things in Jerusalem, Gaza, the Gulf or the Black Sea.
Been There
Don’t you think bookmakers must be accurately informed of the chances of the participants in the contest?
The flow of money may not necessarily set the odds. Bookmakers may be happy to hold a liability position on their book – especially with clients like you 😀
Been There
Besides, don’t forget, you can’t win on horse racing – the odds are disgraceful.
And I’m making that claim even after giving you The Everest winner tomorrow night.
Hope you’ve done the form lol 🙂
*catcha later
parkySP,
FUBAR is intentionally a malign actor in a Darth Vader kind of way. We know that. We also know that Darth Vader was defeated because the Force wasn’t with him. 🙂
I wonder if anyone in Trump’s inner circle has told him that his stupid little dance routine makes him look like he’s miming a sexual act with his little hands with two men at the same time?
If not, I hope they remain silent about it because it’s somewhat hilarious that he’s continuing to do it after all this time.
Kirsdarke @ #146 Thursday, October 17th, 2024 – 9:52 pm
Especially as he’s dancing to a gay anthem. 😀
@Centre
Stop big noting I told you on the previous thread last night that Trump was slight value relative to the polling aggregates and that was the time to move.
Too late smarties got the overs and he is back to about what he should be you can’t make money following money.
Some Harris positive polls from well-credentialled pollsters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIGdI2HKhqw&t=554s
Kirsdarke:
Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 9:52 pm
[‘I wonder if anyone in Trump’s inner circle has told him that his stupid little dance routine makes him look like he’s miming a sexual act with his little hands with two men at the same time?’]
He looks like he’s attempting to pass a compacted stool.
Best way for a compacted stool in the bush is to put your heel on it and stand up.
Old ringer trick.
Pity the USA can’t do that with Trump!
The only reason this Silver character is calling it 50/50 is he is trying to help is employer sell Harris at a price much shorter than the polling aggregates suggest she should be.
The median of the polling aggregates he provides in the article that was linked above is +2.7 and that is not 50/50 Silver knows 50/50 is about 3.2.
I though our resident wagering guru@Centre would have picked up on all of this but it seemed to go straight through to the keeper.
You’re on the ball there howlin wolves!
CNN tried to find the makers of Trump’s new ‘Swiss-made’ watches. We ended up at a shopping center in Wyoming.
So there’s a couple of misconceptions to unpack here. That’s not how any of this works.
First of all: Selling Harris with shorter odds – No, it is the longer odds (caused by hilarious efforts of crypto whales to juice the markets and help desperate Don maintain a credible narrative) that sell the bet – shorter odds would have the opposite effect. You can’t sell me a bet on Harris with worse odds… No doubt Nate Silver is trying to drum up business for his employers cryptobro fleecing machine, but he is smart enough to do things that will actually have that effect. Did you mean selling Trump at longer odds? Don’t try and tell me it’s the same thing, since we’re being pedantic about betting analysis now.
Secondly “a price much shorter than the polling aggregates suggest she should be.” and “Silver knows 50/50 is about 3.2.” , ok this is a doozy and I’m going to try and keep it brief – There are many things Nate Silver “knows” and “50/50 is about 3.2.” is absolutely not one of them. Shit no. No way. I’m not trying to defend the guy, but we have to at least give him credit for creating a computer model that resembles the system it is trying to forecast in the sense that it is EC based, heavily swing state poll focused etc – and absolutely not in any way based on misconceptions about nation wide popular vote to EC disadvantage from specific previous elections. I don’t want to ramble too much on this one because it’s just silly, particularly for a site like this.
Finally – I see that you want to puff Trump up with an air of detached numerical authority but there are too many tells, too many appeals to authority for it to work effectively. Polish your schtick and have another crack.