What a fantastic week we’ve had in election markets – and they’re still going!  Let’s dive right into what we have ahead of ourselves:

MOAR Elections

Can the August 14 primaries top the August 7 primaries?  What about our intermezzo in Hawaii this Saturday night?  I’ll have my preview with results links for August 14 and Hawaii up a bit later, for now though let’s not lose sight of the potential profits in the leftovers from August 7.

OH-12: Pretty much over.  There are almost 9k votes left, of which maybe 4-6k will be valid and counted, of which O’Connor would have to win an unreasonably large percentage to flip the results.  If there’s money left here, it’s in hoping that these additional votes end up pushing the margin up over 1% for Balderson.

KS-Gov: Now this is a fine situation.  About a 100-vote margin on over 200k votes.  Possibly around 10k votes remaining (!).  Accusations of illegal aliens voting.  Accusations of tampering with the vote count.  Counties discovering errors in their initial counts (three so far!).  A court battle in the making?  The first of the outstanding votes (absentee mail-in) will be trickling in throughout the day, so be ready for that.

TWEETS

(New to tweet markets?  Read my guides starting here.)

RDT – Need more than just a few random quotes about the Russia investigation sprinkled throughout the day (is he acting on advice of counsel after the ill-conceived Don Jr. meeting tweet?).  Need a rant.  Or a retweet spree.  Or something to get this market livened up.  Otherwise it’s just a boring slog to a B1 victory.

PT/WHT – The WHT energy was strong this past week, surprisingly getting us pst B1, though Scavino decided not to care.  We shall see how their pattern changes once the boss is back in town and events are ongoing.  Got a feeling it could be a fun week in these markets.

VPT – Kind of a normal week of travel and events and so on coming up for him.  Let’s hope we get some decent brackets and I suspect we’ll have some fun.

POLLS

(New to polling markets?  Read my guides starting here.)

A lot is due that ought to start showing up soon (the networks, CNN, Fox) along with a few usual suspects like Quinn and the weeklies.  538 TA should be fun (hopefully those YG dailies come in time this week…) while 538 ballot is hanging precariously on the edge of the bracket range and our friend Reuters might decide to condemn that market to an early demise (or at least an early spike) if it wants to.  This is also about the time we first get polls that might still be in the average at the end of the month, so don’t sleep on that one.  Oh and Rasmussen should be a fun one too.

THE REST

Manafort Charges – His first trial is due to wrap up soon (and could be over by the end of next week, depending on how long the defense takes).  From what I’ve heard the prosecution has laid out a fairly formidable case (I mean, the guy IS guilty) despite some chest-thumping memery from the judge.

Close polling in governor’s races – There’s a lot going on to affect the various governor’s races and the female governors market.  A Suffolk poll of the Maine race finds a dead heat.  Raimondo and Fung are also potentially tied in Rhode Island.  Lori Swanson finds herself in trouble in Minnesota with allegations of improper use of her AG office.  Whitmer defeats El-Sayed to bring herself closer to the win in Michigan, and Kelly wins the Kansas primary where the protracted battle on the Republican side (and potential Kobach victory) could increase her chances (though a run by a self-funded left-leaning independent might siphon away enough of her support to stymie her in the end).

One last thing – If you intend to play hard in November, this is probably now the time to start hoarding your pennies so that you have a nice solid bankroll.  And also probably the time to start staking out buy-and-hold positions in the big markets (House seats, Senate control, etc).

 

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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.

Wow – what a night.  Does it get any better than a super-tight down-to-the-wire election?  How about two?  Can we throw in a few flips elsewhere too?  Well then, folks, welcome to the August 7 primaries.  Oh and by the way  –

We’re not done yet

(Results links here, if you need them: https://predictingpolitics.com/2018/08/04/august-7-special-election-and-primaries-preview/ )

Action continues!  As I write this at 7:30am on Wednesay morning (after being up til 2am…), several markets are still unresolved:

OH-12: This is still almost certainly Balderson’s.  There are something like 8k potentially unrecorded votes (when you consider outstanding absentees and provisionals), of which I reckon at least 4-5k get counted.  In theory, these could drag the margin down under 0.5%, forcing an automatic recount (which Balderson still probably wins).  Provisionals are not counted for 11 days (we will get absentees earlier) so this one will be live for a while.

OH-12 MoV: Similary, this can technically still pop into 1-2%, if the outstanding votes favor Balderson or if a recount happens and the recount favors him a bit more.

MI R-Sen MoV: With 4% of precincts remaining in James-favoring Wayne and Macomb, he could still bump himself back into the 10-15% bracket.

MI-13 D primary special election: There’s some kind of chicanery afoot here.  I did not follow this on election night but from a groggy surmise of the market comments, it seems there might be a reporting error somewhere?  Either that or Brenda Jones really did get more votes for this race than she got for the non-special race.

KS R-Gov primary: Last, but certainly not least, this race has come down to the final few updates, depending (as I write) on the last 200 or so precincts in the achingly-slow counting Johnson County.  This one reportedly will finish by around 9am eastern (so about one hour from when I post this).  And in those 200 precincts, Colyer needs to make up a 541-vote deficit.  Good luck!  UPDATE: JoCo has finished, and we’re at 191-vote lead for Kobach and almost-certainly headed to a recount, pending however many provisionals are out there.

The action that was

Let’s also not forget just how insane election night was.  OH-12 saw at least four flips!  As we got down to the wire I think we went from 70 to 30 at least twice in an hour.  This chart shows some of the action but doesn’t really do it justice.  Really just a classic election market.  Difficult to play and time well, but if you lost money at any point the market was sure to give you a chance to make it up later (or misplay and lose even more…).

KS-Gov didn’t (and hasn’t) lacked for action either.

The rest of the week

• We’ve got a classic finish brewing in 538 ballot, with MC vs potentially YG/Ras.
• RDT closes this morning, and his Kobach mention market is also live.
• WHT is blessedly alive this week, with surprising strength keeping it going despite 0 scheduled events.
• And with one speech today and another tomorrow on SPACE FORCE, VPT has an outside chance of getting out of B1 (but probably not?).

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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.

OH-12 (7:30pm).  Michigan (8:00pm).  Kansas (8:00pm). Washington (11:00pm).

Let’s look into the markets.  First, the useful stuff:

Links

OH-12 Special Election

• Results: NYT / DDHQ/Vox / Secretary of State
• 2018 primary results
• 2016 results
• Ballotpedia

OH-12 Special Election MoV

MI D-Gov primary

• Results: NYT / DDHQ/Vox / Secretary of State
• Ballotpedia

MI-D-Gov primary MoV

MI R-Sen MoV

• Results: NYT / DDHQ/Vox / Secretary of State
• Ballotpedia

MI-11 D primary

• Results: NYT / DDHQ/Vox / Secretary of State
• Ballotpedia

MI-11 R primary

• Results: NYT / DDHQ/Vox / Secretary of State
• Ballotpedia

MI-13 special D primary

• Results: NYT / DDHQ/Vox / Secretary of State
• Ballotpedia

KS R-Gov primary

• Results: NYT / DDHQ/Vox / Secretary of State
• Ballotpedia

KS R-Gov MoV

KS-02 R primary

• Results: NYT / DDHQ/Vox / Secretary of State
• Ballotpedia

KS-03 D primary

• Results: NYT / DDHQ/Vox / Secretary of State
• Ballotpedia

WA-08 2nd-place primary (effectively D primary)

• Results: NYT / DDHQ/Vox / Secretary of State
• Ballotpedia

 

 

Special Election Upset?

Democrat Danny O’Connor has drawn level with Republican Troy Balderson in recent polling as both contest for the seat vacated by Pat Tiberi.  We have at least one more poll to go (Emerson, Monday morning) but I doubt it will matter for the market’s pricing.  Trump’s rally might bring in some bullish R money (but again I doubt his rally has a real impact – is Trump really going to have an effect here only on R turnout but not D turnout?).

So if this comes down to election night we have a pretty standard setup on our hands.  The early vote should favor O’Connor.  The early election day returns, especially from the eastern counties, will favor Balderson.  Franklin county (Columbus) will favor O’Connor (and has the most votes).  Delaware county piques my interest – on nothing but eyeballing it, I think O’Connor doing well here in the E-day vote means he’s doing well overall.  (Monmouth Polling’s Patrick Murray has some excellent advice here in terms of what to look for on election night.)

UPDATE: Don’t sleep on the MoV market – this one promises to be excellent.

Michigan

The headline race is the fight for the Democratic nominee for Governor.  Here Gretchen Whitmer is trying hold off the late momentum of her Bernie-endorsed opponent in Abdul El-Sayed.  [And if she wins she has a pretty reasonable shot at winning in November (affecting the female governors market, as discussed here).]  Michigan doesn’t have an early vote and no clue who’s power base will be where.  If it plays out like Hillary-Bernie, then El-Sayed takes the rurals while Whitmer takes the cities, but I don’t know if it will follow that pattern exactly.  As usual for Michigan, Wayne County will contain most of the votes and will also probably be among the slowest to report.

Elsewhere in Michigan, the Democrats are nominating their candidate to run for John Conyer’s seat in November’s special election (yes it’s weird that there is a special election and a general election happening at the same time for the same seat with the same candidates and yes technically someone could win the nomination in one and not the other but that’s not likely).  Brenda Jones has the broadest support from the constituencies involved and I suspect takes this one but if you like spending on the Berniest candidate in the race then Rashida Tlaib is your woman.

We have two markets for both parties’ primaries in the 11th district (some Republican named David Trott is vacating the seat).  On the Republican side, polling favors the somewhat Trumpy Lena Epstein, though we do have a high number of undecideds.  The undecideds lead the field in polling on the Democratic side, with Tim Greimel placing second (the market gives him essentially a 50/50 shot but on a very thin order book).  These both will depend on Wayne votes so it might go a bit late and then break suddenly I suppose.

Kansas

The storyline in Kansas is all about Kobach.  If he wins the primary, what happens in the general election?  Jmart has the NYT narrative take here.  There are also a couple not-dead-quite-yet markets for congressional primaries here, with Welder the presumptive winner for the Democrats in KS-03 while Watkins leads the field of Republicans comfortably (according to the market anyway) in KS-02.  These are the kinds of races that usually go the way of what the market says but are so lightly traded initially that they can appear to be more certain than they are.  Have not looked deeply into them myself yet but I always recommend that the studious trader study these spots to see if there’s any value there.

One last note: if Kobach does take it, there will be a great market to be made on who wins the final race in November.  Read the Jmart piece though – there’s an independent candidate who, if he entered, could play spoiler to the Democrats chances (and the chances to elect a female governor).

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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.

After this relatively sleepy week (two our of four tweet markets dying early; TN markets going straightforwardly; one big flip in 538TA though), what will the first full week of August bring?

Donny is on vacation having a very busy week full of meetings and calls, Pence is ????, and Congress is out of town.  Still, we do have quite the election day to look forward to.  Let’s dive in to the week ahead:

Tweets

RDT – I really dislike Bedminster Donny.  At least at the WH and Mar-a-Lago the golf course is a drive away – requiring some planning to get to and imposing some structure on his day (and letting us know when he won’t be tweeting since we get the pool report).  At Bedminster no time of the day is safe.  And, aside from a jaunt out to Ohio tomorrow to pump Balderson ahead of the special election, he’s at Bedminster all week.  His mood is… still weird.  I’ll be curious to see if he does any last-minute endorsements ahead of Tuesday (or for the following Tuesday) but other than that be careful out there fam.  It’s a wide-open field of possibilities.

PT/WHT – Feels B1ish?  I mean I didn’t expect a fairly ordinary week in WHT to spike 100+ tweets last week, so maybe a vacation week can still get us out of B1?  Or maybe we just get the expected “economy good” “kavanaugh good” “ICE good” tweets.  Oh and did we ever figure out why we got two random “share your story” opioid tweets a couple weeks back?

VPT –  My sense is he’ll also vacation, though I see no indication of it yet.  But why hang around DC if no one is in town, including the boss man?  Maybe Pence makes an unannounced trip from Hawaii to see our troops in Afghanistan?  Or maybe it’s just a quiet week at the Naval Observatory, idk.

Polls

IBD is due, McLaughlin is overdue, CNN and Fox are ripening nicely.  538 TA had a fantastic flip this week, and I expect a lot more caution as a result this week.  538 Ballot should be interesting though I’m a touch worried (writing this pre-Friday Reuters) that it could run off the B7 end with the right sequence of events.  RCP TA will finally get its drops (it better) and be playable again this week.

 

 

Balderson v O’Connor and the rest of the Tuesday action

The main event is surely the tightening OH-12 special election (Monmouth has it effectively tied).  But there are plenty of other fun races to consider.  Will Kobach get the nod in Kansas?  Can Whitmer hold off the Ocasio-Cortez-blessed El-Sayed?  (And there are implications in both Kansas and Michigan for the female governors market).  Will the favorites take MI-13 and MI-11?  I’ll have a somewhat more detailed preview up later, but for now check out the markets available here.

Decision soon on Mueller interview?

With a long Bedminster break to ruminate and jawbone with his co-conspirators allies, Trump is undoubtedly going to be thinking about the Mueller interview.  Which he wants to do!  Which his lawyers know is crazy because he’d perjure himself!  Rudy has thrown out another arbitrary deadline, and the Special Counsel is making some limited concessions.  I don’t know, just feels like something to keep your eye on this week.

SCOTUS after October 31?

Senate Judiciary Chairman Grassley requested some 900,000 documents from the National Archives on nominee Kavanaugh (many fewer than the number sought by Democrats).  Yesterday they responded, saying they could have 300,000 ready by September, but the remaining 600k would take until the end of October.  If Grassley decides to wait for all of them (or if they can’t be found via an alternate source, like the GWB library as the committee spokesman suggests), this blows up all the SCOTUS markets (and made for a fun little spike in the Rand Paul market yesterday).  Something to consider when placing your bets there.

Polling bits and bobs

We got a second poll showing Kate Brown tied with her pro-choice Republican challenger.  And a surprising poll showing Kristi Noem tied in SD-Gov with her Democratic opponent as well. (Still no markets for either of these).  Nonetheless, these polls and Black’s loss in her primary last night have roiled things a bit in the female governor’s market (my [updated] analysis from last week here, when things seemed so much simpler…).  Even Kay Ivey isn’t leading by as much as you might expect.

Beto is keeping things close-ish in TX, but I’m still a bit bearish on his final chances.  Can you imagine the Beto 2020 hysteria if wins?

For other random polls, I recommend bookmarking 538’s poll tracker here.

Good luck out there this week!

 

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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.

Well folks with two out of four tweet markets prematurely dead, it’s time to find somewhere else to spend your money this week.  Journey with me down south to the land of Corkback Mountain for a quick overview of the Tennessee primaries happening this Thursday, August 2.

Links

TN R-Gov Primary

• NYT / Vox/DDHQ / Secretary of State (links will be added as they become available)
• Ballotpedia

TN02 R Primary

• NYT / Vox/DDHQ / Secretary of State (links will be added as they become available)
• Ballotpedia

TN08 R Primary

• NYT / Vox/DDHQ / Secretary of State (links will be added as they become available)
• Ballotpedia

Early voting thus far

Preview

The main event is almost certainly the gubernatorial primary here, though TN-02 may yield some decent action as well (despite missing several candidates including the viable Ashley Nickloes in the market).  TN-08 is likely all but decided in favor of Kustoff, with Trump’s endorsement the icing on the cake.

Diane Black should be the slight favorite in the gubernatorial contest but the polling is sparse, low-quality, and all over the place to boot.  She does have Pence’s endorsement going for her so that’s gotta be worth something slightly above nothing.  If this primary goes according to all others like it, her 6th Congressional District extending from the Nashville exurbs to the Kentucky border (and east to the Cumberland mountains) should vote heavily for her.  Sumner and Wilson are her big counties, with Wilson already putting up some respectable numbers in the EV.  Lee and Boyd don’t have obvious geographic bases that I see.

Another PI trader, theburgermanofoz, has his own analysis of this race if you’d like a different, yet similar take: https://burgerresearchdaily.weebly.com/home/tennessee-primaries-some-competitive-some-already-over .

Bonus

Aside from TN, there’s action in the Podesta charges market on a report that an investigation into Tony has been referred by Mueller to SDNY; there’s a new poll showing Kristi Noem actually in danger of losing in SD-Gov (which would ruin my “very likely” rating that she will be a governor come 2019); and, as always, the water is fine over in 538 ballot, where we await the grand finale tomorrow.

 

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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.

In the wake of Trump’s ascendancy, women are running for office in yuge numbers (generally as Democrats).  Not only that, they’re also winning.  In House Democratic primaries, women are overperforming their male counterparts by 15% according to a Cook political analysis.  So how will they fair in November?  PredictIt offers us two markets to wager on the question.  First – How many U.S. Senators will be women on Jan. 31, 2019?  And second – How many governors of the 50 states will be women on Jan. 31, 2019? (And maybe we’ll get a third on how many members of the House will be women on the same date?).

These are interesting markets with a lot of moving parts – let’s break them down.

How many U.S. Senators will be women on Jan. 31, 2019?

Market brackets (pricing as of  July 29, 2018):

The market loves 25+!  Mainly because this one was launched  just after Franken was replaced by Smith and before Hyde-Smith replaced Cochran, taking the current number of women in the Senate to 23.  On top of that, Flake’s AZ seat will almost certainly go to a woman, as Democrats and Republicans are both poised to nominate women (unless Arpaio pulls off a miracle upset in the Republican primary).

But let’s break it down and see if the market’s pricing is justified.  Here’s the list of women very likely or almost certain to be in the Senate come 2019:

• (13) Not up for reelection/special election: Murray, Collins, Murkowski, Shaheen, Gillibrand, Hirono, Fischer, Moore-Capito, Ernst, Cortez-Masto, Duckworth, Harris, Hassan
• (6) Very likely to win reelection/special election: Feinstein, Cantwell, Klobuchar, Smith, Hyde-Smith, Warren
• (1) More likely than not to win reelection/election: Stabenow (though she does have a reasonably strong likely challenger in John James).
• (2) Very likely to go to a female candidate of either party: AZ (Sinema or McSally), WI (Baldwin or Vukmir, though Vukmir may fall in the primary).

This puts us at 22 guaranteed/safe/pretty safe female seats in the Senate.  Meaning this market boils down to how many more you think will come to pass of the remaining possibilities:

• Heitkamp vs Cramer (40% market odds)
• McCaskill vs Hawley (47% market odds)
• Rosen vs Heller (66% market odds)
• Blackburn vs Bredesen (50% market odds)

(Again, all odds as of July 29, 2018).

Of these, I agree with the markets that Rosen stands the highest chance, bringing our probable total to 23.  Can we find two more among Blackburn, Heitkamp, and McCaskill?  I’m sure we can, but it’s also not a lock.  So this market is far from dead – pay attention to polling in TN, ND, MO, and NV and adjust accordingly.  If the Blue Wave sputters, start checking in on WI and MI.  If the Blue Wave is surging, remember that means Heitkamp and McCaskill still both have to hold to get to 25.

One last thing: McCain’s seat, should it become available after the election but before Jan. 31, 2019, could easily go to McSally if she loses (this also depends a bit on what happens in Ducey’s race, as far as timing goes).

How many governors of the 50 states will be women on Jan. 31, 2019?

Market brackets (pricing as of  July 29, 2018):

Now this one is way up in the air.  Let’s dig in.

Current female governors up for re-election or who will still be in office:

• Kate Brown (OR) – Conventional wisdom is that she wins re-election easily, but we do have a recent Gravis poll showing a dead heat so?
• Kay Ivey (AL) – Likely to win re-election.
• Gina Raimondo (RI) – She’s dealing with a bit a challenge from the left but if she makes it past Matt Brown I suspect she wins in November.
• Kim Reynolds (IA) – Taking over for Branstad (one of the funniest markets of all time, the Branstad market), she’s up for re-election vs Fred Hubbell.  Sabato has this one a toss-up, as does the market.

Other gubernatorial races involving a woman:

• Gwen Graham (FL).  Should she win the primary (by no means certain), she will face a male opponent on the republican side in what should be one of the marquee match-ups of 2018.  The market gives the early edge to the Democratic candidate in this one, but that might change once the primaries are over and we get into general election polling.
• Stacey Abrams (GA).  This is the one that The Narrative political writers are hyping up.  Trumpy white guy Kemp vs one-of-us black woman Abrams.  But it’s the deep south.  But muh changing demographics.  An interesting one where the market gives the Republican the edge for now.  (But let’s see what further polling reveals).
• Colleen Hanabusa (HI).  If she defeats Ige in the primary on August 11 (which is certainly possible), she wins.
• Paulette Jordan (ID).  Kind of a long-shot here (we don’t even have a market yet).
• Laura Kelly (KS).  If she faces Kobach as the market suggests, I would kinda want to put a bet-with-your-heart wager on her (give market pls).  I also wouldn’t be shocked if Kansas voters wanted a change after the Brownback era.  Let’s see how it shakes out though.
• Janet Mills (ME). The market and the raters agree that this one tilts towards her (and after LePage’s tenure I’m not surprised that Maine might want to move away from a Republican).
• Gretchen Whitmer (MI). She has the edge here and likely takes it, but it’s far from put away (and we technically haven’t had primaries yet).
• Lori Swanson (MN). She’s involved in a tight-ish primary battle with Tim Walz here, but should have a pretty reasonable shot at defeating Pawlenty in the general should she make it there.  (Erin Murphy also has a shot here, but she appears to be in third in the primary from what I can see so far).
• Molly Kelly (NH).  Not a lot of recent polling that I see, but if she makes it to the general I reckon she’ll have a reasonable, but maybe not winning shot against Sununu.
• Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM).  Polling, raters, and the market agree that she will take this one.
• Cynthia Nixon (NY). Probably not, but you never know I suppose.
• Kristi Noem (SD).  She’s a Republican and she’s gonna win it.
• Diane Black (TN).  Assuming she makes it out of the primary, she will be the slight favorite in November.
• Lupe Valdex (TX). Probably not gonna happen.
• Brenda Siegel (VT).  If she wins the primary she still likely loses to Scott in the general.
• Various (WI).  None likely to beat Evers for the Democratic nod.
• Mary Throne (WY).  Another “if you win the primary you get to lose in the general” situation.

Okay that’s a lot!  Where does that leave us?

• (2) Very likely: Ivey, Noem
• (5) Likely, but not guaranteed: Brown, Raimondo, Mills, Black, Lujan Grisham
• (5) Reasonable shot: Graham, Abrams, Hanabusa, Whitmer, Reynolds
• (3) Stretches: Kelly, Swanson, Kelly

And that’s why the market both favors the high end of its range and why it’s uncertain.  Many balls remain in the air, though they’ll start coming down shortly as we head into the thick of primary season.

Hope this helps you get your bearings in these “take it all in at once” markets and I hope to see you trading in them come election night!

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8/2/2018 UPDATE:

Black is out!  Noem is tied with a challenger in one poll!  Another poll shows Brown tied in Oregon!  If I had to re-organize, I’d say this is where we stand:

• (1) Very likely: Ivey
• (3) Likely, but not guaranteed: Raimondo, Mills, Lujan Grisham
• (2) More likely than not, but watch out: Brown, Noem
• (5) Reasonable shot: Graham, Abrams, Hanabusa, Whitmer, Reynolds
• (3) Stretches: Kelly, Swanson, Kelly

 

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8/15/2018 UPDATE:

Hanabusa and Swanson are out!  Kobach won in Kansas, which means Kelly has a somewhat stronger shot (though she has to deal with independent Greg Orman potentially siphoning some of her support).  Polling indicates both Mills and Raimondo have close races ahead in the general, so they’re being downgraded.  And a new poll shows Paulette Jordan within striking distance in Idaho, so we’ll add her to the mix.  Finally, Hallquist probably has a tough road vs Scott, but we’ll see what polling says:

• (1) Very likely: Ivey
• (1) Likely, but not guaranteed: Lujan Grisham
• (5) More likely than not, but watch out: Brown, Noem, Raimondo, Mills, Whitmer
• (4) Reasonable shot: Graham, Abrams, Reynolds, Kelly (KS)
• (3) Stretches: Kelly (NH), Jordan, Hallquist

 

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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.

Another great week in the books – let’s take a quick look back at the action that was and then onto what’s in store for the week ahead.

Promises Made and Promises Kept

Pence was supposed to tweet, and he did.  We got a few panic cycles but nothing too dramatic.  Scavino was supposed to cuck, and he did!  A fantastic finish to the PT market following an incredible disappointing finish to WHT.  And I promised polls in my preview last week, and polls we did get.  We ended up with a solid flip in 538 TA and really promising action for the first week of 0.5-width brackets in 538 ballot.

Georgia delivers

Fantastic markets all around for Tuesday’s action, with the AP data entry glitch torching thousands (while earning as much for the quick thinkers).  See my recap for the gory charts.

The Week Ahead in Tweets

(New to tweets?  Check out the guides starting here.)

RDT – Last week I thought he would blow through Cohen news (if you can remember way back then, the Cohen story was that he had a tape) with a single tweet before moving on to other stuff.  That turned out to be true, but the rest of my prediction that he would go on Scavino RT sprees and so forth turned out not to be.  I’m really unsure about his state of mind right now.  Obviously the Witch Hunt stuff continues to enrage him.  But he’s also probably happy about GDP and so forth.  Helsinki is fading, and with it the sense of political crisis.  Will he return to the manic tweeting of June?  Or is he still off his game?  B85 (as usual for a B7 in an RDT market) really wants to win, so I expect the first sign of manic retweeting will send it moonward.

WHT/PT – Well, well.  WHT has had such a hot start it may get to the point where even the normal weekend slowdown won’t affect it.  But then again I think that every week like this and every week like this seems to have a Monday-morning B7 crash in it.  As far as Scavino-world?  I may have some fun stats and graphs for you guys on that in a post later.  For now, see below for a teaser plot showing how fast PT retweets a WHT or an RDT for those cases where PT does actually retweet either account.  Data here is from the beginning of July through July 26:

VPT – Unlike last week where everyone knew everything, this is a rather interesting spot.  I don’t think it’ll be a B7 week.  And I don’t think it will be a B1 week, but someone sold me a single 1c share there so maybe I’ll root for it.  Good luck with the schedule research everybody.

It’s the end of July

That means RCP end-of-month is in play, with drops making things particularly interesting.  Tomorrow morning, perhaps?  Other than that it’s down to Ras, Gal, and perhaps a CNN or something like it.  538 TA depends on similar information and 538 ballot should hopefully be quite fun, though I suspect we won’t get as many Wednesday polls as we did this week.  We seem to be starting off with the same “low Friday Reuters” dynamic that sent B1 so high last week… let’s see what happens this week when there aren’t Marists and Quinns and Kaisers out there to keep the average high.

(New to polling markets?  Guide starts here.)

And along with the end of the month comes a few July end-date markets.  Of these, the Flood Insurance Senate passage market looks the most promising.  On a cursory look, I’m guessing this market is mainly down to how long cloture lasts but I guess pay attention to the Democratic and Republican floor calendars to see when the actual vote comes.

Markets to watch, research, and ponder

If there was any great random-market action this past week I certainly missed it.  This is what I’ll have my eye on this week:

WIGov – A stunning 13-point deficit reported by NBC/Marist for Scott Walker has thrown this market into turmoil.  We’ve got some more polling coming here so let’s see how that holds up.

Manafort charges/conviction – Rudy Giuliani seemed to hint in an interview last night that perhaps something had happened with respect to Manafort flipping.  Or maybe he was just Rudy-ing.  Would be quite interesting though if a cooperation-based plea deal is reached, given that we’re at that last-minute point in the trial cycle (it is supposed to officially begin on Tuesday).

To research:

August 7 primaries – it’s about that time to start staking out early predictions in these.  The Conyers-replacement primary looks like the most unsettled for the moment.  Let’s also hope we get some markets for the Tennessee primaries next week because I don’t think we have any at the moment.

The NATO market – This one just looks like it could be cracked by good research rather than sitting around waiting for publication in January.  But it’ll probably stay on my back burner for a while.

To ponder:

Next speaker – Yeah I don’t think Jim Jordan is going to get the job done (remember when his price went to 2c on the wrestler scandal breaking?  And now it’s gone to 14c on an absurd long-shot bid?).  That said, McCarthy is vulnerable as well and there have been reports of behind-the-scenes jockeying should he fail to coalesce enough support.

House turnover – I own some B9 shares here that I bought without thinking at one point that might be completely trash, so I figure I ought to sit down and figure this one out.  A good exercise for those of you that like to sink your teeth into elections and so forth I imagine.

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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.

Today, the Washington Post published a piece by data journalist Philip Bump that sought to look at how changes in Trump’s approval rating relate to changes in the generic ballot.  If Trump gets more popular, does that correlate with a stronger performance by the GOP on the generic ballot?  As he is rated more unfavorably, are polling respondents less likely to indicate that they’ll vote for the GOP in November?

To address this question, Bump creates a funny set of plots (he describes as ‘unnecessarily-complicated’) that show how, during a particular month, Trump’s net approval rating (approval – disapproval) and the GOP’s advantage on the generic ballot (% who support the GOP – % that support the Democrats) both change.  The result are these odd squiggle plots that show, for each day in a month, where net approval and net GOP advantage were.  You can think of these like a top-down view of a footprints left in snow by an animal wandering through a landscape, so its path is allowed to cross over itself (I won’t bother trying to map this analogy completely onto the polling data).

Wait – RCP data?

As you might know from the polling market guides, there are some idiosyncrasies with how RCP maintains their polling averages.

RCP –

• Only uses polling data from a select few pollsters
• Has no strict/explicit policy about the date ranges of polls that contribute to its average at any given point in time
• Has no strict/explicit policy about how many polls contribute to its average at any given point in time
• As a result, will arbitrarily “drop” polls from its average for no explicitly discernible reason

So what if we do Bump’s analysis with 538 data?

On a lark I decided to replicate his analysis with 538’s data (538’s average is methodologically much more rigorous).  All polls are included by 538, and the number of polls and how they contribute to the average is determined purely by algorithm with no contribution of human whim.

As I suspected, the results are a bit different.  For instance, here’s January 2018:

(I also added an arrow that shows the path from the start of the month to the end of the month; Bump’s presentation has an open square representing the start and a closed circle representing the end).

538 and RCP are pretty different

I don’t have the RCP numbers to do the actual math, but you can see by comparing the monthly graphs from the 538 data to the RCP data that things are often dissimilar.  Bump’s RCP data is here, the 538 plots are below:

 

But the main picture is still the same

The whole purpose of the analysis is just to show how Trump’s approval rating relates to the GOP (dis)advantage on the generic ballot.  Bump writes:

“Notice the general patterns here, though. Up-and-down and left-to-right line movement in a month; often, diagonal movement from lower-left to upper-right or vice versa. But not much movement from upper-left to lower-right — not much movement in which Trump’s numbers were headed one way and his party’s another.”

 

This is also true in the 538 data, but I think the point is made a little more obvious if you simply consider the full dataset all at once rather than digesting each month piecemeal:

 

Here you can see that there’s a linear relationship between Trump’s net approval and GOP net advantage on the generic ballot.  But it’s not 1:1 – that is, Trump’s net approval has to move fairly substantially in order to alter the GOP’s standing.  (While Trump’s net approval has varied across a roughly 15 point range, the GOP’s position has only varied across a 10-point range.)

This point is underscored by the direction of the arrows in the next plot, which just show each month’s change in the dataset:

One more caveat

It’s worth pointing out that both 538 and RCP maintain averages for Trump approval and the generic congressional ballot that each contain different polls.  This is because some polls and some pollsters might poll Trump approval and not ballot (or, less commonly, the other way around).  So we’re not exactly comparing the aggregate responses of the same people here.  Nonetheless, I suspect the results would be the same if you filtered the averages to only polls that asked both questions.

What a hilarious night in the election markets!  I hope you all made it out profitably.  The basic lesson of the night – if you didn’t – is to pay close attention to how the election day vote differs from the early vote (and how both differ from the first round of voting).  And to always cross-verify results by checking multiple sources…

Blowout in GA Gov

Cagle vs Kemp went as expected, with Kemp running away with all but two counties.  The MoV market was a bit slow at first but the 25% or higher contract took the lead after about 5% of the vote reported (it was clear the election-day vote was breaking harder for Kemp than the early vote) and never looked back.

Flip! Sleeper Lt. Gov race delivers

No one really paid attention to this race for the first hour (yours truly included).  Even though early returns were close, the presumption was that  Shafer’s Round 1 strength in the metro Atlanta area would eventually carry him to victory.  But as more and more votes came in and the race stayed close…  well the savvy were able to notice that Shafer’s performance in the election-day vote wasn’t as strong as his first round and that there wouldn’t be enough of a margin in metro Atlanta to save him.  I got punished for not doing that math here!

 

Bourdeaux out-muscles Kim

GA-07 D primary was a lightly-traded market (it took a long time before we got results from Forsyth and Gwinnett), yet it nonetheless managed to flipflop around a bit.  Most of the panic/greed trading was again based on people thinking the early vote margin would hold for election day and the fact that Gwinnett’s early vote came in first, temporarily giving Kim a lead.

The meme of the night – an Associated Press transposition error temporarily flips GA-06

This was really funny.  After early results came in, McBath looked like she would pull away with an election-day vote edge and the market responded correctly even though Abel had been leading for a while (causing a temporary flip).

Then someone at the Associated Press decided to enter the results for a judicial race in Fulton county into the box for GA-06…. and when the NYT updated with 21k votes for Abel and 16k for McBath it completely flipped the market.  Look at the candles at the volume peak LOL:

Thoughts and prayers for those who got whiplash from that one (and a reminder to always check multiple results sites, like the ones I linked to in my preview!).  And kudos to those of you that spotted it early enough to make a killing.  I am sad to report that while my first instinct was that it was an error, I didn’t bother following through to check on it quickly and didn’t make nearly as much as I could have.

These are the spots that election-market traders live for.  If you got burned by this one, don’t worry there will be another some day.  This is PredictIt after all.

Bonus plug

If you’re looking for stuff to do this Wednesday afternoon, 538 ballot is poised to go… somewhere.  Four polls are released and not in the average (YG, MC, Marist, and Ras) while the market is expecting one more any time now (Quinn).  With 0.5-width bracket this one could be fun.

There are also two mention markets for Pompeo’s senate hearing that I intend to check out. (“Intepreter” and “McFaul“).

And of course there’s always WHT, which is in a very interesting spot.

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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.

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.