Bet on McCain for Presidency

Bubs101

kenco wrote: »

Likelyhood is that Obama will win and therefore the odds on McCain are irrelevant but a good bet could be on the margin of victory which is likely to be much less than the 130 college votes suggested by PP

Considering the amount of safe Republican states and the fact that alot of the swing states are traditionally hick racist ones that is heniously good value. Does anyone know the last time somebody won by that margin?

Chucky the tree wrote: »

I presume the worse the economey gets the better it is for the Democrats? Or would the swing voters look at the candidate rather then the Party?

Generally the rule is always that if the economy is bad the non incumbent party wins in America. As for the swing voters, they'd nearly always vote on a candidate allegiance as if they tended to vote for a particular party they wouldn't be swing voters

RoundTower

Bubs101 wrote: »

Considering the amount of safe Republican states and the fact that alot of the swing states are traditionally hick racist ones that is heniously good value. Does anyone know the last time somebody won by that margin

actually, apart from the two most recent elections, all of the recent ones have been won by a landslide.

I think there might still be value here though. If you look at the map you should be able to find 100 guaranteed electoral college votes for McCain, he only needs 205 total to win this prop. I'm going to look into this properly.

Mezcita

Backed McCain at 2/1 a few months ago. But to be honest I'd be happy enough if Obama got in as the US really needs a vaguely competent leader right now.

The financial crisis will help Obama but it is easy to forget how conservative Americans are. Hate to say it but a lot of voters would not want a black guy in power.

Anyway, 5/1 is value to me.

RoundTower

I don't know what people here think of intrade in general but they have an amazing tool on the front of their website. The screenshot doesn't really do it justice imo, anyone who wants to bet on this market should at least go to the site and play around with it a bit.



It's made me think McCain +130 isn't so hot after all at 5/6, I think I'll look for something else.

ArmaniJeanss

RoundTower wrote: »

actually, apart from the two most recent elections, all of the recent ones have been won by a landslide.

Aye, there seems to be no direct correlation between % of popular vote and electoral votes.

Mondale v Reagan. Mondale get 40% of vote and just 13 out of 538 Electorals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1984#Results

Carter v Reagan. 41%, but just 49 / 538.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980#Results

Dukasis v BushSnr. 45.6% but just 111 / 538.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1988#Results

ninebeanrows

Didn't realise how much of a favourite Barack Obama is.

1.18 to win

McCain is 6.4 to win

Collie D

Surely McCain has to be value now at 5/1. I know Obama's in front in the polls and the media love him but things aren't always as simple in politics. If bookies odds are anything to go by then we would be looking at a Clinton/McCain election. I still have this niggling thing in th back of my mind that says the Yanks won't elect a black man, sorry. 5/1 looks good

Chucky the tree

It's getting worse for McCain and Co.

"Troopergate Report: Palin Abused Power
Unanimous but Contentious Vote to Release the Report to the Public
By JUSTIN ROOD and JESSICA RUTHERFORD
Oct. 10, 2008

Sarah Palin abused her power when she fired her Public Safety Commissioner this July, a state investigation has concluded.

The Alaska legislature voted today to release the 263-page report on the "Troopergate" scandal, a state kerfuffle which has come to haunt Gov. Sarah Palin's vice presidential bid. The scandal centered around her firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Monegan and others believed Palin fired him because he refused to take action against Mike Wooten, a state trooper under him who had been involved in a messy divorce with Palin's sister, Molly."

Oshare Bones

On second thoughts, I don't think the mccain +130 handicap @ 5/6 on paddy power is such good value any more. If barack obama wins by more than 64 electoral votes then its a losing bet. This has happened far too many times in the past for my liking:

1996: Clinton 379 , Dole 159
1992: Clinton 370, Bush 168
1988: Bush 426, Dukakis 111
1984: Reagan 525, Mondale 13 :eek:
1980: Reagan 489, Carter 49

Oshare Bones

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Aye, there seems to be no direct correlation between % of popular vote and electoral votes.

Mondale v Reagan. Mondale get 40% of vote and just 13 out of 538 Electorals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1984#Results

Carter v Reagan. 41%, but just 49 / 538.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980#Results

Dukasis v BushSnr. 45.6% but just 111 / 538.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1988#Results

Very true, and in 2000 al gore actually got more popular votes than bush, just bush ended up with more electoral votes.

kenco

In this election especially (race, etc) it is going to be very tight. As stated by another poster there are some states that Obama will not win regardless of what happens. Assuming the majority of swing states go for Obama (big if) then he will win by more than 130 but this would truly be a surprise. The US is a significantly more divided country than it was in the '80s or early '90s.

Unless something from left field happens (possible!) then the margins will get tighter between now and Nov 4.

RoundTower

Oshare Bones wrote: »

On second thoughts, I don't think the mccain +130 handicap @ 5/6 on paddy power is such good value any more. If barack obama wins by more than 64 electoral votes then its a losing bet.

I'm not sure how you did your maths here but the point is good, that it is very misleading to think the closeness of the last 2 elections is representative of US presidential elections in general.

also this is another site that I really should have mentioned above. Pretty sure the guy behind this site used to be a professional or semi-professional sports bettor with a rigorous mathematical approach. Now he does statistical analysis on the US election polls

www.fivethirtyeight.com

Oshare Bones

RoundTower wrote: »

I'm not sure how you did your maths here but the point is good, that it is very misleading to think the closeness of the last 2 elections is representative of US presidential elections in general.

Sorry I actually worded it wrong. I meant if obama gets 65+ more electoral votes than the required amount to win, the bet loses. For example:

Total electoral college votes available: 538
Required to win: 270

e.g. so if obama gets 335 (270+65), that means mccain can only get 203 (which is 333 with the handicap) meaning the bet still loses.

Oshare Bones

RoundTower wrote: »

www.fivethirtyeight.com

Thats a lot of information to take in, good site!

todolist

I think the McCain team are not going full blast after Obama because they're super sensitive to any hint of racism.By any stretch of the imagination Obama is a poor candidate.Only 2 years in the Senate.Full of meaningless slogans and vague on policy.A really good campaign would demolosh this guy.McCain's people have run an abysmal campaign.

Dodge

todolist wrote: »

I think the McCain team are not going full blast after Obama because they're super sensitive to any hint of racism.By any stretch of the imagination Obama is a poor candidate.Only 2 years in the Senate.Full of meaningless slogans and vague on policy.A really good campaign would demolosh this guy. McCain's people have run an abysmal campaign.

So why did you back him last week?

Duck Soup

I poke around a few of the American political sites, such as Real Clear Politics.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

If you're looking for good, solid statistical info on the US election, either at the national or state levels, it's a valuable source of information.

Another one that's getting increasing recognition is Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Broadly speaking RCP leans right, 538 leans left, but both pride themselves on their statistics being unsullied by their politics.

Even allowing for any racial element skewing the polling data (known in the States as The Bradley Effect), McCain seems to have hit an absolute ceiling of about 43%. Maybe third party candidates will make it a tighter race, but to me it just looks like McCain is never going to get the votes he needs. He's tried every campaign tactic in the book and the polling is unusually steady. Add onto this that there is a rapidly changing demographic in the US, helped along by a mighty voter registration drive by the Obama campaign. Anecdotally, McCain's ground operations are meant to be awful. I wouldn't have a red cent on McCain at any price.

todolist

Dodge wrote: »

So why did you back him last week?

I didn't back him.Did I say I did? No.

ArmaniJeanss

todolist wrote: »

I didn't back him.Did I say I did? No.

wtf, you said in your second post in the thread that you were going to 'lump on' at 10/3 (:pac:) having previously told us how great 11/4 was.
2 days later you were telling us how good a bet it was at 4/1.

And now you try to tell us that you didn't actually back him.

I think you are an idiot.

Oshare Bones

lol ^

Mccain handicap on pp is +140 electoral votes now. @ 5/6

I know fivethirtyeight.com has projected obama 361, mccain 177 but while the owner has clearly put a huge amount of effort into the website the data is still based on a series of national polls. I'm still not confident enough to bet either way but I guess at the end of the day the result will show the level of honesty among americans in these national polls.

Dodge

Polls are only ever indicators. Even in the US, the sample is tiny. I won't be betting in this market as there simply is too many factors that can't be measured. If a "great bet" pops up I may change my mind

Threads ike this make me think I'm right to stay away

todolist

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

wtf, you said in your second post in the thread that you were going to 'lump on' at 10/3 (:pac:) having previously told us how great 11/4 was.
2 days later you were telling us how good a bet it was at 4/1.

And now you try to tell us that you didn't actually back him.

I think you are an idiot.

I did say that.I am an idiot.I was on the brink of backing him but all the polls and all the informed opinion say he's run an awful campaign.One of the worst since Walter mondale.Only saving grace for Mondale is the fact he lost to the Great legend,Ronald Reagan.

okidoki987

PP's are paying out on Obama to be next US President :eek:

Bluetonic

okidoki987 wrote: »

PP's are paying out on Obama to be next US President :eek:

Easy marketing ploy once again...

Dodge

todolist wrote: »

I did say that.I am an idiot.I was on the brink of backing him but all the polls and all the informed opinion say he's run an awful campaign.One of the worst since Walter mondale.Only saving grace for Mondale is the fact he lost to the Great legend,Ronald Reagan.

Ah so this wasn't a betting thing at all. you're just telling us who you want to win...

Duck Soup

The more interesting bets are down ticket, on the senatorial races. In many of these, you don't have the (unknowable) racial variable since most of the contests are between white candidates.

Two are particularly interesting to me. First, there's the North Carolina senatorial race, with Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole (Bob Dole's wife) up against Democrat Kay Hagan. At the start of the campaign season Dole was seen as a shoo-in. But the Republican brand is so devalued and the start of Dole's campaign so lacklustre, Hagan has managed to claw back a huge initial poll deficit to a decent lead. Paddy Power has Dole at 6-4 and Hagan at 1-2.

The other senate race that's fun to watch is in Minnesota, with Democratic challenger Al Franken (comedian, chat show staple and author of 'Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot') against sitting Republican Norm Coleman. Franken had a tough job for a long time to get people, well, to take him seriously. Coleman was also able to dig out some of Franken's more off-colour statements from his previous job to keep Franken on the defensive. The tide appears to be turning in that race, but it's still very tight. Some polls have Franken 3 points ahead, so maybe Coleman is the good value with Paddy Power putting Franken at 1-10 at Coleman at 5 - 1.

Here's Paddy Power's odds on the individual state senatorial races:

http://www.paddypower.com/bet?action=go_type&category=SPECIALS&disp_cat_id=31&ev_class_id=33&ev_type_id=5142&ev_oc_grp_ids=84907&bir_index=

..and here's Real Clear Politics latest polls from each race:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/senate.html

todolist

Dodge wrote: »

Ah so this wasn't a betting thing at all. you're just telling us who you want to win...

It was a betting thing.I thought the odds on McCain were great and yes I do want him to win.Looks like Obama has it.Another Jimmy Carter in the making.:(

ArmaniJeanss

Back from a weekend in New York (just spotted my 'yellow card' from my previous post :pac:) and talking to a few people about the election and observing a few things.

I know that New York is 'different' so a lot of this may not be relevant.

Pro Obama.
Far more people walking around with Vote Obama badges and t-shirts, I estimated they outnumber JMC badges by about 5 to 1.
Far more likely to hear a random conversation about Obama in a bar, he is definitely the focus of the election, the exciting candidate. McCain has his supporters but he doesn't inspires them in the slightest.
I got the sense that the European media overplay the race element of the election, interracial couples of all ages from all states stroll around, young people of all ethnic types hang together.

Pro McCain.
Palin is generally still seen as a positive for his campaign, despite what may appear to us to be her obvious shortcomings. Biden on the other hand hardly gets a mention.
The JoeThePlumber stuff, corny as it is, is going down a treat.
A (black) dude in Times Square who holds a cardboard cutout of Obama and charges a $1 for a photo reckons he would be making far more money if he had a JMC cardboard cutout. He believes that 90% of the white 'undecided' will vote for JMC having convinced themselves that its for policy reasons but it'll really be racist reasons.

I'm no longer as convinced as I was that BHO is a shoo-in.

kraggy

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Back from a weekend in New York (just spotted my 'yellow card' from my previous post :pac:) and talking to a few people about the election and observing a few things.

I know that New York is 'different' so a lot of this may not be relevant.

Pro Obama.
Far more people walking around with Vote Obama badges and t-shirts, I estimated they outnumber JMC badges by about 5 to 1.
Far more likely to hear a random conversation about Obama in a bar, he is definitely the focus of the election, the exciting candidate. McCain has his supporters but he doesn't inspires them in the slightest.
I got the sense that the European media overplay the race element of the election, interracial couples of all ages from all states stroll around, young people of all ethnic types hang together.

Pro McCain.
Palin is generally still seen as a positive for his campaign, despite what may appear to us to be her obvious shortcomings. Biden on the other hand hardly gets a mention.
The JoeThePlumber stuff, corny as it is, is going down a treat.
A (black) dude in Times Square who holds a cardboard cutout of Obama and charges a $1 for a photo reckons he would be making far more money if he had a JMC cardboard cutout. He believes that 90% of the white 'undecided' will vote for JMC having convinced themselves that its for policy reasons but it'll really be racist reasons.

I'm no longer as convinced as I was that BHO is a shoo-in.

New York City is a predominantly Democrat city. It has a Republican Mayor but traditionally is very Democrat.

Mellor

Handicap is +/-160 now