One More Prediction…

Below, Ronald Bailey notes that both Tradesports and the Iowa Electronic Markets indicate a Bush victory.

Over at Electoral Vote, things are breaking Kerry's way, with the site predicting a final tally that has Kerry taking 306 electoral votes to Bush's 218.

Comments

[Jason Bourne]

Please, let it end soon! By early December at least! 🙂

[Swamp Justice]

electoral-vote.com's predictions assume that currently undecided voters will split 2:1 in Kerry's favor. Where does that magic 2:1 ratio come from? I don't see anything backing it up. Given the current nearly 50/50 split, I would predict undecided voters would split 50/50 or 49/49/1.

[Jason Bourne]

Swamp Justice,

Its a truism in polling that undecideds split 2:1 for the challenger. His main page - where he has no such assumptions - has Kerry with 298 EVs.

I continue find it interesting that the election - as far as geography is concerned - is like the 2000 election a near-perfect mirror of the 1896 election, with party dominance in the various regions reversed.

[fyodor]

Redskins lost, means Kerry wins.

[Dan]

I believe the IEM contracts pay based on whether or not Bush wins the popular vote, not whether he wins the election.

Much as I don't want Kerry to win, I would almost like to see a situation where Kerry wins in the electoral college but loses the popular vote. Just so I could see the Democratic and Republican partisans try to keep a straight face while arguing that the 2004 results are clearly legitimate/illegitimate even though the 2000 results were clearly illegitimate/legitimate.

Its a truism in polling that undecideds split 2:1 for the challenger

There's a pretty good debunking of that belief here (link via OxBlog).

[MayDay72]

Ummmmmmmm...I predict...[wearin' my "Carnac" hat and holdin' a Florida "butterfly ballot" that has been hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall's porch]...

Bush: 296
Kerry: 242

...That's my story...And I'm stickin' to it...

[Jason Bourne]

Dan,

Well thankyou for correcting me.

[Jason Bourne]

I predict Bush 269 and Kerry 269, with the House vote splitting 25-25 and Edwards becoming President in light of the Democratic majority in the Senate elecing him Veep after Jan. 3rd and thus catapulting him to the Presidency. 🙂

[db]

Dan: I believe the IEM contracts pay based on whether or not Bush wins the popular vote, not whether he wins the election.

There are two sets of IEM contracts on the Presidential election: One is the Winner-Take-All market which is divided into four separate contracts: Bush @ >52%, Bush @ 52%, Kerry @

[Warren]

This is just another guys pulling stuff out of his ass. He gives OH, PN, and FL to Kerry, looks like wishful thinking.

I trust the market more.

[db]

Damn greater- and less-than signs and HTML. Crap

Anyway the 4 contracts are:

Bush wins the popular vote with less than 52%
Bush with greater than 52%
Kerry wins the popular vote with less than 52%
Kerry with greater than 52%

You are correct that they don't pay off based on who actually wins the presidency if we have a PV/EC discrepancy.

[SR]

Warren, assuming you're talking about electoral-vote.com, the "Votemaster" and Tradesports.com agree on 2 out of 3 (FL/OH). The only difference is Penn., which Tradesports shows up 5.5% for a Bush win.

[SR]

Actually, looking at the complete Tradesports' state market, we get some pretty strange results:

Bush to win (no change): AL, AK, GA, ID, MA, MI, MT, NE, NY, RI, SC, SD, TX, UT, VT, WA, WY

Bush to win (up): AZ, CT, DC, HI, LA, NC, OK, PA, TN, WV, WI

Bush to win (down): AR, CA, CO, DE, FL, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, ME, MD, MO, NV, NH, NJ, NM, ND, OH, OR, VA

The "No Change" states make sense, but quite a few others seem wrong. For example, why would Bush stock be falling in Kentucky (where the last polls showed Bush ahead by almost 20 points) but rising in Connecticut (where the last polls gave Kerry a 15 point lead)?

[joe]

"I would almost like to see a situation where Kerry wins in the electoral college but loses the popular vote. Just so I could see the Democratic and Republican partisans try to keep a straight face while arguing that the 2004 results are clearly legitimate/illegitimate even though the 2000 results were clearly illegitimate/legitimate."

I don't buy it. Eliminating the electoral college, and allowing the vote of a person who lives in a decandant, multiculti, urbanized coastal enclave to count just as much as that of God-fearing Wyoming rancher, is actually a consistent liberal belief. Maintaining the disproportionate power of Real Americans over us cringing traitors, is actually a consistent conserative belief.

So if Kerry become president with a lesser share of the popular vote, my reaction isn't going to be "that's the way it should be." It will be, "I told you so, this system sucks, let's change it, one person one vote."

Given the degree to which Republicans have been willing to abandon principle to support W, I'm hoping enough of them will choose temporary expediency to climb aboard. And I doubt I'm the only liberal who feels this way.

[no one in particular]

Anyway the 4 contracts are:

Bush wins the popular vote with...

One further clarification: the contracts technically are for who wins the TWO-PARTY popular vote. Nader votes don't count on the IEM (that goes for the vote-share market, too).

Also, though the IEM is predicting a Bush win, about an hour ago, the shares on the winner-take-all market were only about one cent apart, meaning that the CW on the market is effectively undecided. The difference is so small as to be almost useless, really. And again, note that the IEM was wrong in 2000 (it incorrectly predicted Bush would win the popular vote).

Also note that up until a few days ago, shares that Bush would get > 52% of the popular vote were trading at like .32, which IMO casts doubt on the supposed "wisdom" of the entire thing. 32% chance that bush gets > 52% of the two-party vote?? It just seems nuts.

I'm still investing, though, because I think most people are playing this market pretty stupidly 🙂

[Jawbreaker]

Check this out.

if the World could vote, Bush gets his strongest support in the Middle-East.

[Cher]

Thank goodness the world can't vote in US presidential elections.

They'll have to wait until the end of Kerry's first term for that!

[Andy D]

SR, I don't think the state-by-state up and down thing means anything. These changes are all very slight and only show what's changed since yesterday.

And SR, as of this morning when I looked at it, Tradesports and Electoral-vote.com disagreed on FL and OH, the former giving them both to Bush and the latter both to Kerry. In PA, they both have Kerry winning.

[Dan]

Eliminating the electoral college, and allowing the vote of a person who lives in a decandant, multiculti, urbanized coastal enclave to count just as much as that of God-fearing Wyoming rancher, is actually a consistent liberal belief

I don't know about "liberals", but the Democratic Party has only been opposed to the Electoral College since November of 2000. In the days before the 2000 election, when it looked like Bush might win the popular vote while Gore took the EC, the Democratic Party was quite firmly in favor of the EC. The Democrats will rediscover their love of the EC again if Kerry wins it. They are in any event unlikely to seriously advocate determining the Presidency via popular vote --since FDR died, Democrats have only achieved 50% of the popular vote three times, with a solid majority in 64 and bare majorities in 60 and 76.

But hey, I could be wrong. It could be that the various Democrats who called for Bush to voluntarily withdraw and let Gore win will turn around and demand that Kerry yield the Presidency to Bush. I'm just not holding my breath.

[fyodor]

So if Kerry become president with a lesser share of the popular vote, my reaction isn't going to be "that's the way it should be." It will be, "I told you so, this system sucks, let's change it, one person one vote."

Good for you, Joe!

However, I bet we wouldn't be hearing Michael Moore demanding that Democratic Electors vote for the Republican so that the will of the popular vote be honored the way he did the other way around last time! 🙂

[no one in particular]

Another note:

Right now Kerry is WINNING on the Iowa Electronic Markets' winner-take-all market.

Kerry shares are .54, Bush's are .482. Clearly not even the market can make up its mind.

[SR]

Andy, yes, as I have discovered today, Tradesports is quite volatile. Probably 10 or more of the states have flipped from up to down (or the reverse) in the last two hours or so. Looking at them more closely, I think the major problem is the small volume in most of those markets, so a few traders can really knock them around.

[Andy D]

no one... where does the IEM have Kerry in the lead?... the graphs I see have Bush up. But if you're right, it's time to manipulate IEM against Tradesports and take a sure thing. Tradesports has a popular vote winner bet... Bush is running at about 54.

[Andy D]

SR... you think it's volatile now? Just wait til tomorrow!

[no one in particular]

Andy D: The graphs you're probably looking at (the only ones I know of) are updated nightly. I was quoting figures directly from the exchange (which you can only get access to if you're a trader).

Things are right now at a dead heat: .495 to .495. It's swinging wildly, though, back and forth.

[a]

Jawbreaker:

"if the World could vote, Bush gets his strongest support in the Middle-East."

According to he Web site you mentioned, The number of Middle-East votes received are 800. 296 voted for Bush, I wonder how many of those were from Israel.

[Jawbreaker]

"wonder how many of those were from Israel."

I was wondering about that as well. I can't imagine very many Saudi's with Internet access.

[a]

"I can't imagine very many Saudi's with Internet access."

The CIA Factbook 2003 estimate is 1.5 million internet users in Saudi. The growth rate is ~20%. Not sure how many of them read English sites though.

[Fabius Cunctator]

Yeah, down with the stinky electoral college. Why should the yokels get to live the way they want when the way we live is so much better?

There's no man so enlightened and tolerant that he won't force his way of life on the unenlightened bigots when he gets a chance.

Let's not be greedy, we've got all the places worth living in already, can we please let the yokels keep Wyoming? I don't want to get killed in the Second Civil War because Joe and his friends won't know how to fight and I'm damn sure not gonna let the yokels have Philadelphia. Philadelphia sucks in a lot of ways but I like it.

[joe]

Yes Fabius, if the yokels don't get extra authority over the rest of us, it's a violation of their rights.

You're either really good at playing dumb, or really dumb. You spell pretty well, so I'm going to guess you're just a deeply dishonest person.