A look back…

…Trump met Putin (and it was insane); WHT/PT went hard Monday tweeting it; then it turned out to be a huge disaster; then WHT/PT/VPT went silent Tuesday while trying to solve the communications crisis; then they came back with a vengeance; some Congressman got caught in a scandal and for once in our lives we actually had a market for it; Trump endorsed Kemp and then a poll buried that market (but we still will have action Tuesday); and to round things out apparently everyone won money on an astounding finish in PT this morning.

In last week’s preview, I predicted that Trump would tweet at Turnberry (he did), that PT and WHT would be swing-y (they were, but c’mon this was a really safe prediction), and that VPT would have a tweetsy week, perhaps threatening B7 (he did not – one of his speeches was canceled after I put that up and the crisis mode Tuesday cucked his production bigly).  Let’s see how I do this week…

A look ahead…

The main event of the week ahead is the Georgia primary run-off election on Tuesday – if you haven’t already I have a write-up and links to useful resources here.  And since I put that up yesterday we also got an MoV market for the gubernatorial race!  The brackets are good, so once McBath/Abel sorts itself out I suspect that’s where the action will be.  Also we can always hope for a surprise in the gubernatorial race, or maybe at least a dumb reaction to the early vote.

Tweets

RDT – Our President, as always, finds himself buffeted by the cross-currents of the whirling gyre of dizzyingly-overlapping shitstorms he stirs up.  He’s trying to bully his way out of the Russia news cycle (fake news! etc.), re-direct attention elsewhere (muh economy!), maintaining an aggressive/defensive posture on trade/tariffs (“I’m tough!  But please don’t be too mad at me, farmers!”), starting some sort of new fight with the Fed (“Wow the fed had better not hurt the economy by raising interest rates!”), and oh also there’s the thing where he has a tape discussing payments to a Playmate in the months prior to the election with his former lawyer/consigliere who also btw is under investigation and is maybe totally definitely thinking about doing the thing where he flips.

So yeah, I think he tries to blow through the Cohen thing with a single tweet or two, tweets out a bunch of agenda-setters that won’t work, and retweets Scavino and himself twenty times this weekend while golfing and talking on the phone with Sean Hannity.  Good luck out there fam.

WHT/PT – This week I promise I will hold my 1c B90s in PT til the end should I be so fortunate as to acquire them.  That said, I suspect PT won’t make the same mistake this week that it did last (in fact it might over-correct).  WHT meanwhile is also feeling its oats, though let’s see if it undergoes the usual weekend correction (my guess is yes, but not that dramatically).  Nothing I see in the week ahead that would suggest anything other than the usual (some light days, some heavy days, etc).

VPT – “Press F for the VP tweet market, it was born ded” – JaneKay.  Well let’s see shall we?  It’s a big week of stuff, but there would be nothing like a lighter-than-expected Saturday function to shake things up.  The usual B7 week dynamics apply here – unless it breaks early, we’re due for at least a couple cycles of irrational exuberance and despair.

There Will Be Polls

Right?  A lot out there that should be hitting soon-ish.  McLaughlin. ARG.  Quinn.  CNN.  Harvard-Harris.  ABC and CBS are in kind of weird spots with their recent one-offs, and Fox is probably out.  On top of these irregulars, we’ve got the normal dailies and weeklies.

It’s make or break time for at least three brackets in monthly RCP TA, weekly RCP TA will certainly get one or two drops with or before any new entries, and 538 TA I suspect will be interesting.  And we finally got 0.5-width brackets in 538 ballot!  ….Only to probably be brutally cucked by that Friday Reuters update (though let’s see if Reuters maintains this narrower edge on Tuesday).

We’re also starting to get that point in the election cycle where individual senate/house polls have the potential to move markets a few cents here and there.  When Trafalgar of all pollsters drops a Manchin +10, you end up seeing his price spike from low to high 70s (with little ceiling).  Could definitely go for an outlier MO poll or two myself this week.

Odds and Ends

Nate Cohn has an interesting piece on the interaction of a blue wave with gerrymandering.

McTurtle is posturing like he might let the SCOTUS vote lapse until early November, which has really interesting implications for all of our vote markets.

Did you all do your research on global temperature like I suggested last week?  If so, you may have discovered that we’re WAY behind 2016’s record pace with virtually no chance of catching up.  I don’t know the real odds for this market, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they were less than 1%.  (And, yes, I am maxed NO here).

Theresa May survived Brexit votes this week (apparently? I still don’t get British politics), and her odds of lasting the year have improved to 60% according to the few members of the crowd willing to bet on it.

 

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Disclaimer: I probably have positions or intend to take positions in just about all the markets I discuss herein.  You should always do your own research prior to making any investment decision. You should consider my advice and knowledge I share to be fundamentally biased in its presentation and selection by my own financial incentives.  While I do not knowingly lie I certainly do knowingly omit information that I think gives me an edge.