I really hope D-Pres gets below -200 at some point in the next week or two. I probably should lock up some -250 but don't really feel like tying the money up for months yet when I doubt the price changes too much for at least a few more weeks

There should be some nice value in some of the swing states and senate races as we get closer.

Swoop,

That is shocking. Why would you make such a -EV bet based on the polls? Do you think Nate has lost his magic? RCP has? Polls have?

While Silver had some good cycles he's been way off so far this time and this election is unusual in that Trump is a candidate unlike any other who should theoretically be unelectable in a general election.

I'm probably going to wind up on D-Pres, various senate races and swing states once the polling data is more useful later in the cycle. Hillary really should have lost this election to any competent candidate (either D or R) but Warren didn't run and Rubio forgot how to interact with humans so here we are. I don't have any bets yet but that seems like where the value is. I'd imagine loading up on all of the D swing states that fall before North Carolina might be the way to go if the campaign plays out the way I expect it to from here but i'd prefer to wait until at least the first debate to load up even if it means I wind up with -3xx instead of -2xx due to how unpredictable the election cycle has been so far.

Nothing i've seen in the polling data suggests Trump has a 40% chance of victory and this is likely a high water mark for his campaign and right near the bottom for Hillary given she was called a liar by the head of the FBI but nobody will remember or care in a few months all that matters is she dodged the indictment so she can shout vast right wing conspiracy and run ads showing Trump being Trump with scary voices talking about nuclear weapons and that's that. Demographically Trump has alienated too many voter blocs, he can't build a winning coalition with what he has... well, he can, but Hillary would have to run one of the worst campaigns of all time and while she's seen as corrupt and unlikeable, she's also seen as competent (which is a bit lol) and safe (which is fair enough she's more status quo) so she will win by default. She may run into trouble if the Republicans can nominate a moderate in 2020 though but the current Republican party is incapable of winning national races in the 21st century with candidates like Trump and Cruz.

I agree with pretty much everything you just said, but still feel the current value is on the Trump side. How can almost all the swing states be within the margin of error and you feel confident laying such a big number? Conventional wisdom? That didn't work out very well on the Brexit thing.

I think the odds may be overestimating Trump's appeal with a general electorate as opposed to the more narrow Republican primary electorate - also while Trump energises new voters, he will hurt turnout with certain republican key groups and I think there are more never Trumps who will either not turn out or vote third party than Berniebros who don't hold their nose to vote for Hillary. That's not really based on any empirical data though. Also in Presidential years turnout should be good and demographic trends are generally favouring the Democratic party. I'd be shocked if the Hispanic vote isn't historically high and they're very anti-Trump and I think Hillary will do fine with the black vote as they turned out for her in the primary and she will have Bill Clinton and Michelle and Barack Obama as campaign surrogates there

I just feel like this election should be more like -4xx than -2xx right now for the D side now that Hillary dodged the indictment. She's a weak candidate but Trump has some pretty glaring weaknesses compared to even the last couple Rs who lost to Obama. Hillary is a weaker candidate than Obama, but she's facing weaker opposition too. I just think demographics are everything here and Trump's electoral college math is tough even if the popular vote is close, unless he gets all 3 of OH, FL and PA since VA and CO seem pretty likely to go D this cycle especially with Kaine now added to the D ticket. Trump isn't going to improve on Romney numbers with Hispanic or Female voters, he will def go backwards on Hispanic and female, and he can't improve too much with Black voters, he may outperform Romney there slightly, he's going to have to win white males in a super landslide because he's not going to improve really with white females either due to Hillary being female and Trump being Trump. I just don't see where his coalition comes from demographically unless Hillary literally gets indicted for criminal activity

If Trump drops out, who replaces him on the Republican side?

found the answer, either reconvene or the party committee chooses

That was a good one.

well i hit the republican primary very well. but i missed the hillary indict prediction.

i was heavy on republicans to win the presidency which was a bad bet. clinton still has to dodge perjury investigation, clinton foundation investigation, major health issues, and huge turnout for people who despise her. overall my current bets are not looking great.

Trump down to 12.4%!!!

Time to reverse all those position on -3xx

NB: This is like every other year in the past, where his model swings wildly in response to polls that don't accurately portray the current state of the election and result in losing a ton of money betting his polling.

to be fair, if the GOP nominates anyone not named Trump or Cruz they probably slow walk right into Penn Ave.

This. This election is baffling. Maybe Trump will buck all the likely voter models, since that is where all the real art in forecasting elections lies.

true. but i was big on trump or cruz, and i didnt anticipate how they would play in the primary. i still think my bets are live but i got awful prices on them. hillary is truly awful and its impossible to underestimate how much republicans hate her.

except the GOP who apparently are starting to go her way... but yea, most core repubs consider her the poster-child of everything Lib they hate.

Purely from a betting standpoint, taking Hillary even right now likely still has some value IMO

i doubt it rainmaker. she could die before the election she is sick. she can still face legal trouble for clinton foundation. there could be more leaks. could be a major muslim terror attack on the US.

all of these evets help trump

Would be Pence who might have a very good shot at winning, depending on the timing.

So I guess the NS position is Trump +2xx reversed into Hilary -3xx, looking great now!

no doubt all of those move the needle (death aside obviously); the rest of those tho are more and more remote from a probability standpoint (wikileaks I think being the most likely/probable.) But you are right, if something like a major attack were to happen or some very damning leaks it could change the game. Balancing against the inverse apocalyptic possibilities of Trump blunders, purely from a probabilistic standpoint I say Hill Dawg.

One thing Trump has going for him is that he is relatively immune to "blunders". If he says something dumb then it's just "Trump being Trump". Hillary has to spend her entire campaign playing defense. To use a poker analogy, Hillary is "scared money" while Trump has cart blanche to be the "aggressor". Trump can attack and attack and attack with little downside and keep building more and more momentum up until election.

Trump also has a lot of the Obama factor going for him where he is the much "cooler" candidate. Being a Hillary supporter is not very "cool". The dirt on her like the e-mail scandal and poor physical health just makes her look very weak whenever she is in public. How can you be charismatic on television when you have to spend half of your time trying to convince people that you're not a criminal. Americans like novelty and Trump is super fresh compared to a dying old lady.

I like Trump making this race nail-biting close and I think you will start to see this reflected on PredictIt

I agree with a lot of this except for the female vote. Many married women will vote for whoever their husband is voting for so if their husband likes Trump they will also go for him. Trump getting a lot of white males will bring along a lot of white females as well. A lot of white males voted for Obama in prior elections because he was "cool". I suspect a lot of these guys will find their balls in this coming election and not want to vote for the "old lady".

I think you seriously underestimate the intelligence of American women.

If this was a mainstream candidate like Romney you'd be right, but Trump is uniquely offensive to a lot of women (and minorities) who lean conservative and typically vote Republican and polling has showed his support is pretty limited to white men and lower education level voters. Even if they don't vote for Hillary, any of them who would have voted for a mainstream R who don't vote for Trump and stay home or vote third party is one extra vote he needs to make up elsewhere. Hillary will lose some votes from hardcore Berniebros to Stein, but Trump will probably lose more to Johnson or staying home which hurts them down ballot too. He'll need to turn out record numbers of new voters who don't usually vote in presidential years to offset that or drastically lower turnout for the key dem constituent groups and the way to do that is through apathy, while both candidates are wildly hated here Trump is so hated by the Dem base that they'll turn out for Hillary for the most part even those who preferred Bernie simply to cast a vote against Trump. Trump's issue is he is widely hated by large parts of his own party and while Hillary is disliked by a lot of Ds she isn't hated the way Trump is and is seen as a lesser of two evils, whereas if the Rs nominated a moderate it would have been a different story.

I don't see how Trump wins without an October surprise (9/11 style attack) to change the narrative and even then he'd be an underdog. The demographics just aren't favourable.

Trump's best path I can see involves winning all of the 'should be a red state' stuff like NC/AZ/GA/MO etc, then he has to win all of FL/OH/PA, I just can't find the electoral votes for him to get to 270 if he only wins 2/3. I think Virginia, Colorado and New Hampshire are just too far gone polling wise, VA is not the state it was 10 years ago demographically, CO is polling in safe blue territory and Hillary is up 9+ in MN/WI/MI, she's up 5-7 in FL/OH/PA or so so that path has to be the best one for Trump. VA and CO and NH are all 10%+ margins at the moment too. They may not be that and probably won't by election day but to get Trump to 50%+1 is a step too far probably in any of them. New Mexico probably just has too many hispanics for Trump to win while yelling about building a wall.

Obviusly things can change but Trump needs to have record turnout and increase his share of female or Hispanic voters to have a chance as African American voters will turn out for Hillary as they showed in the primaries and Trump has alienated women and hispanic voters and the demographics just aren't there for Trump to win enough white votes without changing the narrative somehow (eg Hillary gets indicted but that didn't happen). The only other thing that could do it is a major terrorist attack perpetrated by Muslims to win a fear based campaign, closer in scale to 9/11 than any of the lone wolf type things that have happened this year or a massive economic collapse but neither are overwhelmingly likely before the election.

Even if you believe in sensationalists like Nate Silver, you'd still be putting a 9/11 scale event at ~15% as opposed to the 20%+ the rest of the world has it at.

Does that seem absurd? Obviously yes.

We hedging Hillary -350 with Trump +150?

Hill's going down in polls faster than interns on Bill or sick burns aimed at Poogs.