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Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

toddwschneider.com

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Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#41

Post by WildUtah »

imaginenore wrote: post #32

Why in the world would they bet on Jeb Bush over Trump or Carson? Look at the actual polls, Bush is doing worse and worse, while Trump and Carson are rising: http://i.imgur.com/naxgnhi.png http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/rise-of-the-a... (yesterday's numbers)

Republican Party insiders like organizers, lobbyists, congressmen, senators, governors, media personalities, and fund raisers despise Trump and adore Bush. Republican insiders make bank working for defense contractors and Trump was against their Iraq profit center. The donor class is focused like a laser on driving down wages with unauthorized immigration and H1-B that Trump wants to limit. The Republican leadership sees Latin Americans as a voting demographic they can capture 40% of but only by opening the border to unlimited immigration to prove they really love Latinos and Trump threatens both of those hopes. (How Republicans will benefit by increasing the number of people who will vote 60% against them is a mystery to me, but I'm not a Republican.)

As the election approaches, the influence of insiders rises and Republicans especially are very obedient to authority figures. Historically, the candidate next in line according to Republican insiders always and without exception wins the nomination, even when he's very unpopular with the base. Therefore, analysts find Trump a very long shot.

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#42

Post by clarkmoody »

impostervt wrote: post #8

I'd be curious to see Electability numbers given scenarious of one candidate v another. For instance, 'Clinton v Bush', 'Sanders v Trump'.

A color-coded matrix of candidate pairs would be a nice addition to this discussion.

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#43

Post by achr2 »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #30
uptown wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's your metric, it's probably worth running them through a few filters to detect authenticity of their followers: https://www.twitteraudit.com/

(OP) Good idea - FWIW the numbers look proportionately the same if filtered through that. Interestingly, Hillary actually towers over Sanders in terms of authentic Twitter follows.

This filters based primarily on the 'activity' of the twitter account - maybe Sanders is more likely to convince someone to join twitter just to follow him...

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#44

Post by pcl »

jerf wrote: post #7
uptown wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quora: "Are all the U.S. Presidents related to each other?" https://www.quora.com/Are-all-the-U-S-Presidents-related-to-...

Followed link, turns out all but one President can be traced to... King John, the one in the Robin Hood story, born December 24, 1166. Which in practical terms translates to "no", they are not related.

Per the link, the exception is Martin Van Buren.

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#45

Post by hyperpape »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #37
Chathamization wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth pointing out that Rand Paul has 2.06 million likes and he's polling at 2.7%.

Yeah, I noticed that after posting (he wasn't on the original list). My guess is that he's attracted a following of libertarian college students who pollsters probably (rightly) don't give much weight. Maybe he's an example of how flawed the metric is, but maybe he'll be surprisingly resilient as the field winnows.

Also, followers is a lagging indicator. If Donald Trump bows out of the race, he'll still have a ton of followers.

Paul was polling quite high at one point in 2014, but things changed since then (which is no surprise, 2014 is super early).

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#46

Post by protomyth »

vixen99 wrote: post #2

How depressing that a country of 300+ million individuals has candidates from the same families again and again.

Its not exactly a new thing. The 2nd and 6th US Presidents were a father-son combo. The 23rd President was the grandson of the 9th. Multiple Presidents were cousins of other Presidents. But for assassination, a tragic accident, and the moral judgement of a hyena[1], there might have been three President Kennedy brothers and one son.

1) leaving a girl to suffocate in a car underwater didn't end his political career but probably cost him the Presidency - that is what's sad in American politics

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#48

Post by ovet »

matthewbauer wrote: post #19
kittenfluff wrote: post #5

Interestingly, with Joe Biden in the range (10%, 13.5%) to win the nomination, and (7.7%, 8.3%) to win the Presidency, the lowest his electability could be is 7.7% / 13.5% = 57% and the highest it could be is 8.3% / 10.0% = 83% so the market seems to be pricing a probability in the range of (57%, 83%) for Biden to be elected president if he won the nomination - compared to Hillary Clinton's range of (56.9%, 57.7%) I…

A 4th option could be: If Biden defeats the established nominee, he must have an exceptionally well run campaign making him more electable. That is by winning the nomination Clinton has just met expectations but Biden exceeds most expectations.

I think it could also be that Vice Presidents have generally done well in presidential elections when running after their VP term.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-hobratsch/when-vice-p...

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#49

Post by Grue3 »

imaginenore wrote: post #32

Why in the world would they bet on Jeb Bush over Trump or Carson? Look at the actual polls, Bush is doing worse and worse, while Trump and Carson are rising: http://i.imgur.com/naxgnhi.png http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/rise-of-the-a... (yesterday's numbers)

Does nobody remember Newt Gingrich anymore? Or Herman Cain? Both of those were leading in primary polls at some point and ended up nowhere.

Re: Electability of 2016 Presidential Candidates as Implied by Betting Markets

#50

Post by dragonwriter »

wmil wrote: post #38
saturdaysaint wrote: post #6

I don't know if this has any special significance, but I think the number of FB/Twitter followers for the current frontrunners are interesting. I'll use Facebook numbers. Hillary Clinton - 1.3 million Jeb Bush - .26 million Donald Trump - 3.7 million Joe Biden - .85 million Bernie Sanders - 1.4 million Marco Rubio - .99 million John Kasich - .14 million Scott Walker - .36 million Ben Carson - 2.88 million No, I don't…

Jeb is actually really unpopular with a lot of the Republican base. He gets booed when he's at conventions. His strategy was to use his Wall St connections (he was working for Lehman Brothers when it went bankrupt) to build a war chest capable of permanently damaging any other candidate in the race with negative ads. Essentially forcing Republican voters to make an early choice between accepting candidate Jeb Bush an…

> That drove most other candidates from the race

Given the unusually crowded Republican field, that's hard to defend as consistent with reality. "Resulted in most of the other candidates that were seen as likely and viable by the mainstream establishment staying out of the race" is, perhaps, not as obviously contrary to reality.

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