The Kavanaugh saga ends…

What a crazy few weeks that was!  Last week, I wrote

What those senators do care about are polls – and we will get several.  Now – it’s an open question how far Kav’s numbers would have to move before Collins, Murk, and Manchin decide against him.  Right now, they plan to vote for him assuming that the FBI investigation won’t turn up anything they don’t know (and they can hide behind that fig leaf).  To shift them away requires either a major new shoe to drop, some kind of indisputable ding to his credibility, the FBI investigation to find something that indicates he lied under oath, or a substantial drop in public support.  Otherwise, he’s on the court.

And I think I was at least half-right.  Polls didn’t move that much.  No new shoes really dropped.  And The senators I thought would break for Kav did with the exception of Murkowski.  Now, did I know that Steve Daines was going to be walking his daughter down the aisle on Saturday, thereby necessitating him skipping the vote?  Nope!  But there’s always something like that that crops up.

It’s also worth noting how incredibly high volume these markets were (terrific for PredictIt).  And how much of that was new MAGA money coming into town (including some hilariously dumb QAnon money, as fellow Predictor Dmp observes).  And that new money (well, not the Q money) won as Kavanaugh was confirmed.  We now get to observe what would have happened on PredictIt had Roy Moore prevailed.

…and the MAGA money moves into the midterm markets

Checking my notifications Friday night, I was befuddled to discover someone had sold me 726 Jim Jordan NO at 67c to be next Speaker (he’s not worth 33c, that I can tell you).  Others reported getting similar crazy offers filled (I also got hit at 35c in MN-08 for the Democrat, which is a good deal for a toss-up race).

This is undoubtedly a good thing, since the only people previously playing in all these ancillary markets seemed to be left-biased (or so the prices would indicate).  And as you go around the site… literally everything feels cheap right now.  Of course, Republicans did have a solid week in the polls (tenuously attributable to Kavanaugh) and they could continue to narrow the gap in the generic ballot and so forth.  But there are also markets like FLGOV and AZSEN where Gillum’s and Sinema’s persistent strength should have prevented their prices from drifting… yet drift they did as the MAGA money came crashing in.

Tweets

RDT | PT | VPT | WHT

Where or where has our shitposter in chief gone?  He turtled up during the Kavanaugh drama and has yet to emerge from his shell (despite a few odd gems here and there).  Part of this, I think, is that he’s entering into a relatively rally-heavy schedule.  Not only does that necessitate more travel (breaking up his morning TV routine) but it also gives him another outlet for getting things off his chest.  So while the RDT market desperately needs a non-B1 week after a string of boring markets, it doesn’t seem like this is going to be that week.

Oh, and there’s also a hurricane coming.  Will hurricane tweets hit PT/WHT/VPT hard?  This one doesn’t look as apocalyptic as Florence did on approach (and Florence stalled out for a while, giving us a few more days of extra hurricane tweets).  But I do expect Michael will bring us at least a day’s worth of FEMA retweets, so be on the lookout for that.  Beyond that, the official schedule is campaign event heavy for both Trump and Pence, with only a few tweetable events on the horizon.  Still, we have to get at least one interesting tweet market this week, right?  I feel like we’re owed one anyway after the last three weeks…

Polls

538 TA | 538 Ballot | RCP TA | Rasmussen

The polling markets are one thing, but I’m actually most interested in what polls say as we start getting now fully into October and whatever energy Kavanaugh provided Republicans last week recedes.  Nate Cohn has a very straightforward rundown of where things stand in the polls – the tl;dr being that small shifts in the polls from this point forward can result in big swings in the odds for both the Senate and the House.  Keep an eye on my spreadsheet (I’ll be giving it a weekly update tonight) to see how the experts/modelers are moving their forecasts based on new data. | Rasmussen

 

 

 

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.