And trumps base being 'apathetic.' I mean how wrong can one person be??

I think that was two or three pres elections ago I had a bunch of various Obama to win x state props, last election I had a bunch of Clinton to win -300ish and Clinton to win popular vote also -300ish and lost a bit overall. I only went full time as a sportsbettor in 2015 and was a rec before that so only have full accurate records back to 2015. In 2018 I somehow only broke even because I chose FL and NV as the states to back the Ds for Senate/Gov and went 2/4

I don't have any bets this cycle, but i'm sure i'll make a bunch once we get closer to election day.

My gut would be to back Warren and Harris and fade everyone else in the primary at current prices I think but it's way too soon to tell at this point in the cycle. I'm personally a Yang > Warren > rest of field voter at the moment but don't expect Yang has any chance to win unless he has a huge breakout moment in the next few months and my picks aren't so strong that I can't be sure I won't be voting for someone else by the time the primary comes around, I expect Yang will be out of the race more often than not and i'll be voting for Warren by then but who knows. I did nearly take Harris and Warren at various points when the prices were better but didn't and I can't imagine i'm going to get involved any time soon atm

I'd lean towards fading Trump at current market prices for reelection but not firing anything yet there are way too many unknown variables from if the economy takes a downturn Trump is ****ed to 'have Republicans outright captured the electoral process in any key states' to who are the Ds going to nominate etc. as the diff candidates have diff strengths and weaknesses.

The only thing i'd take to the bank is this is going to be a high turnout election, if there's one politician that the average disengaged voter has an opinion about it's Trump and this is their chance to vote for/against him. I don't think Ds will take 'Trump loses for sure' for granted like they did in 2016 so i'm expecting high turnout even if the nominee isn't great and obv the Rs will show up to vote for Trump regardless of what he does between now and then.

My gut is Biden wins. He's ahead in the national polls, though those aren't that important at this point. He's ahead in most of the quality polls of IA and NH, and crushing in SC. Harris' busing attack on him in the first debate didn't move the needle with black voters.

Biden will do worse in caucus states and better in primary states (like Hillary in 2016 and 2008), but there are fewer caucus states now.

Maybe least appreciated is the rules of the democratic nomination. Delegates are assigned proportionately rather than winner-take-all, so if you have 5 legit candidates who make it all the way through the process, there's a pretty strong chance no one gets a majority on the first ballot -- i.e., brokered convention. This time around, the superdelegates don't vote on the first ballot, but they do on subsequent ones, and they will heavily favor Biden vs anyone else.

He could certainly drop a horrible gaffe or fall asleep on stage in the next debate, but I think it's basically his to lose at this point.

I have $1.00 on Biden to win at +1000 he will buy my beer that night in celebration thanks donkden

I'm a lifetime loser in political betting and I don't understand American society or American politics at a fundamental level. With that said:

The fact that Biden is leading this totally baffles me. It seems that he sometimes doesn't know where he is. He routinely loses his train of thought fumbles through a few words, gives up trying to form a logical point and mumbles the word "Anyway," like that lady in the office who can't afford to retire yet and everybody feels bad for her and so she hasn't been fired yet, but she's long since ceased to be of any use. As if it wasn't obvious enough, he ****ed up the simplest line in his closing remarks and looked like he had dementia. That is the one moment that everyone will take away from his performance in that debate. He's 76 years old and this isn't going to get any better.

Not like he is likable anyway. He just can't seem to stop himself from whispering in little girls' ears and kissing them on the lips in front of a camera, and with a mostly uneducated and shallow voting audience, that's going to count for a lot against him. Trump will hammer him on this. Every day for nine months, a new tweet of Biden licking some nymphet's earlobe on a stage somewhere in Colorado, rubbing an eight year old's knee with a little too much familiarity in a farmhouse in a some town you've never heard of in Iowa, running his hand under a little black girl's collar at a high school basketball game in central Florida.

He's also got too much history, experience from another time, in a sensationalist age where nobody can imagine that opinions and the status quo might have been different 50 years ago. He's a centrist only to the extent that people on both sides can pick out things in his record that they find abhorrent. I don't believe anybody is excited about him as a candidate. He's Hillary 2.0 in that a lot of Dems think he is the realistic choice as someone who can defeat Trump, thinking "Surely a lot of other people in my camp will vote for him." But that mentality didn't get people out to vote for Hillary in 2016. Why would it now? Leftists were predicting the end of the world if Trump became president and they still didn't vote. Now he's been president for 4 years. The world didn't end, there are no Mexican death camps, and Trump hasn't pissed on eastern European prostitutes in the White House. Why would leftists be legitimately more concerned now, than they were in 2016? I'm not buying it, I think it's fake outrage, virtue signalling.

But what still doesn't make sense, is why Biden? He has the Obama halo, but I don't think the average voter is educated enough to even know much about Obama's record. He was young, good orator, and black. Good optics. People could feel good about themselves voting for Obama. How progressive. Biden has none of that.

Who is voting for him? What about him makes him more appealing than the other 10 options?

Sincere question.

This is a solid post. My undergrad degree is in political science so perhaps I can shed some light on this. I agree that Biden is a seriously flawed candidate but all the of the others seem to be moving to the left so fast that he is the only one who can still get votes from the American center. Some of these promises that Warren and Harris are making are going to be very hard to walk back and it doesn't even seem like these policies are popular with mainstream America. Kamala's plan strips employee healthcare, something that is deeply unpopular on the left and right. I am surprise that Warren has gone this far left because she would probably be the frontrunner if her stances weren't so progressive. Her politics have changed drastically in even a few years.

I don't know what the culmination is but it seems like Trump has pushed them all way to the left. The trashing of the Obama administration last debate was just another manifestation of this. I don't think that these super progressive ideals are appealing to the average voter, though they play well in the primaries. Basically Biden is the guy who won't go completely overboard in implementing the progressive policies. But I agree with the sentiment that these debates have been bad for him. He's not thinking clearly and certainly doesn't seem suited to run a competitive campaign and then serve 8 years in the White House. All of the Democratic candidates have MAJOR problems and Trump is only going to hammer them harder once they get the nod.

FWIW I have a polsci degree too but never used it opting for full time gambling instead so i'm sure a lot of the stuff I learned is very out of date.

This obsession with winning the political centre (which is center-right by any other first world country's standards) is just not a winning strategy. If voting was mandatory like it is in Australia/Belgium it would be a winning strategy to play to the middle but centrists do not get obsessed with politics the way the left/right do and in voluntary voting elections turning out the base is the most important thing - Clinton lost because she got less votes then Obama, not because Trump got more than Romney. Clinton failed to turn out the base in certain swing states; partly due to the public thinking she had it in the bag, partly due to luck (win the popular vote lose the electoral vote) and partially due to a strong Trump campaign/Russian social media campaign/etc in key swing states. The 'both sides are the problem' holier than thou centrists do not show up to vote in the same number as the left/right wingers.

Out of Trump and Clinton who is more centrist? Clinton. She lost.

Out of Bush and Kerry who is more centrist? Kerry. He lost.

One could argue Romney and McCain were the two most centrist Republican nominees of the 21st century. Both lost to Obama; granted Obama was/is a one in a generation orator.

Al Gore was a centrist at the time, he lost.

The last Centrist democrat to win an election as a non incumbent was Bill Clinton in 1992 - Obama is pretty centrist by 2019 standards but in 2008 Hillary was the most moderate candidate with Obama somewhere inbetween her and the rest of the field and in 2012 he was the incumbent. Ironically Clinton also beat George HW Bush, who was the last centrist Republican President (possibly ever).

Now yes, candidates like Sanders may be too far left to win (idk but i'm more skeptical that he can win than most who generally agree with him on a lot of issues) but that's more because he's old, he has a lot of unexplored baggage in right wing media (Fox will play up the rape essays/honeymooned in soviet union/openly calls himself a socialist/praised Chavez in Venezuela when the time comes if he wins the nom) but a lot of the actual policy positions of the left are popular if explained properly by a charismatic politican or presented as a bipartisan or Republican idea.

Warren is right at the very left edge of what might be electable in America but I think she turns out the base very well. Harris should turn out the black vote and while I find her very rehearsed and insincere and triangulating she's intelligent and generally a good debater and soft on crime attacks won't work on a former prosecutor. I have no idea who anyone thinks Buttigieg's base is and don't think he has any chance to win the nom. O'Rourke missed his shot, I still rate him more highly than most but it's not his year. Yang would win the general imo because he uses language that isn't offputting to the centre despite being fairly far left but won't get nominated. Biden I think wins enough low info voters in PA-WI-MI to narrowly get there but he's a very risky candidate.

It's ironic that Trump who has been credibly accused of tons of sexual assault and whose own daughter has talked about him walking in on miss teen USA beauty pageants deliberately might beat Biden due to casting him as a pervert in the media. I still think all of the major D candidates are small favs over Trump except for maybe Sanders (and I like Bernie a lot)

I also think Biden doesn't win the nomination because Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line, that's just how it works. Dems are just petrified that Trump might win a second term and value electability more than anything right now and would vote for anyone in field field with a 75% chance to beat Trump over their chosen candidate with a 50% chance which might not be the case in a normal cycle but what is electable in 1992 isn't necessarily what is electable in 2019. The silent generation is mostly gone and the older boomers have started dying and early Gen Z are turning 18. We're not quite there yet but demographics are destiny and what 'centrist' looks like in 2032 or 2040 is going to be very very different to what centrist looks like now. Once America gets a public option of some sort that's going to force the Republican party to stop opposing a public option for healthcare, look at Australia or the UK or any similar country with a public option, the conservatives quickly give up on that as a losing fight once it's been in place for a while because public healthcare is popular - opposing a public option is going to be electoral suicide once it happens, and it's inevitable it'll happen next time the Ds control the trifecta whatever that may be - granted if they don't get the Senate in 2020 it might be a decade or more with McConnell to obstruct everything.

The winning healthcare platform should have a public option (eg you can have medicare if you want it) but you can opt out and buy private insurance if you want. Private insurance is a joke in America as it stands and non wealthy Americans do not realise how bad it is compered to literally everywhere else comparable (I've had both private and public healthcare in Aus over the past few years at various times and our private plans have to compete with a strong public option so they're not garbage or expensive). I am surprised that so many Ds are going full abolish private healthcare, which is obv better than the system that exists now but it's just such a common sense position to have both a public and a private option that everyone gets the type of healthcare they want and nobody should be able to object to that on logical grounds.

Biden would be fine as President but would basically get nothing done other than maybe a public option in terms of progressive policy, but by virtue of 'not being Trump' that would be considered a moderately successful Presidency right now. He might pull it off by getting enough boomers to vote D, but he's also going to depress the youth turnout a bit, although not as badly as in a normal cycle because people are fired up to vote for/against Trump regardless at the moment.

I honestly don't know who the most electable candidate is at this point but I do know the only reason Trump isn't dead in the water right now is the economy and that's artificially inflated at the moment. If it stays strong until election day it could go either way, if not it's game over for him.

Biden's appeal is to people who are not us. He does not appeal to the younger, extremely online crowd. He does not appeal to people who follow politics so closely that they bet on it. But there is a huge mass of folks age 50+ for whom he is one of them, he's calming, he's not crazy. He doesn't want to overturn the apple cart. His appeal is, maybe we can go back to a time when we didn't hate each other so much. (Sure, it's a fantasy, Fox News would immediately cast him as the next coming of Stalin. But all the progressive policies like Medicare For All are also fantasies that would never pass the Senate.)

That, plus he's doing by far the best in head-to-head matchups vs. Trump. Don't underestimate perceived electability -- Dems would nominate Mao, Hitler, or Marianne Williamson if they were guaranteed to get Trump out of the White House.

Swoop argues that moderation doesn't boost electability. In living memory, Democrats have nominated three presidential candidates who weren't moderates: Dukakis, Mondale, and McGovern. All three got stomped in massive routs, two lost 49 states. Maybe things have changed, but certainly voters' perceptions of electability haven't changed that much.

Im biased like anyone else and dont have any positions yet but I cant see this going to anyone but Trump. The Dems seem to live in that twitter echo chamber and are trying to appeal to the woke blue checkmarks. Theyre by far the loudest voice in politics today but theyre waaaaay smaller than it seems. I think it's going to be 2016 all over again...Trump will look bad/ok in the polls and then sweep up.

The Dem debates so far have been nothing short of laughable. Every single one of them pledging to offer free healthcare to illegal immigrants?? Like in what world does anyone think thats going to happen. And marinne williamson even being on that stage is a bad look. Bernie looks legit insane and men will absolutely not vote for Warren. I think Trump will HAMMER Biden if its him. I almost want it to be just to see the attack ads.

I think its nice to say that we all care about immigrants and healthcare, but when push comes to shove, imo most people really just care about their wallets. And if the economy and stock market keep humming along, I think itll be trump in a land slide.

hard fade Like #34 RemindMe! 453 Days

The economy is the only thing that people really like under the Trump admin and yet it seems like it's the only things that Dems have actually tried to attack Trump on. It's the just the wrong line of attack. Bashing every Trump supporter is also the wrong line of attack. I was really interested about what Buttigieg had to say initially. I thought he was really smart, talented, and likable guy. Then he went full woke and completely killed any goodwill I had towards him. Attacking Trump voters isn't the winning play here, any Dem who who has a shot at winning is going to have to get back some Trump votes.

I'm almost going to inevitably be voting Trump, unless Yang is the nominee. At that point I am going to have to take a deeper look at his policies.

It's 4 years later and many of the Baby Boomers you're describing have died, only to be replaced with politically apathetic Gen Zers.

I'm hoping Biden gets nominated, as I predict the polls will induce a lot of dumb money that hasn't adjusted to the new paradigm and is overly focused on the metrics to come into the market, reinforced by the reasoning that 'voters won't make the same mistake twice.' Biden, a guy who can be attacked from so many angles and does the typical politician thing where he skirts the subject and laughs off attacks, will enrage the type of people who voted for Trump into doing so again.

If the Democrats want to win (and granted, I don't expect they'll actually do this), they need someone like Gabbart, Buttigeig, or Yang - basically someone young who keeps their cool, can apply logic rather than cringeworthily outdated rhetoric, and has good optics. Clinton, Obama, JFK... these are the types of Democrats who win elections. They get the older voters anyway while inspiring younger voters into some sort of action. Bernie is in the middle, as, while he'll inspire a lot of young voters, I think he will come off as annoyingly self-righteous and incompetent, and will give Trump a ton of ammo. Trump's worst nightmare, given the entertainer that he is, is have to resort to the tired 'they're too inexperienced' schtick vs. a young opponent.

tmk none of these schmo's have learned trumpian orchestration. unless stone cold is coaching someone up, it's gonna be trump again.

This is just baffling that anyone could potentially have Yang as their first preference and Trump as their second if you're voting on policy at all

I get that most people don't and it's a personality contest it's just surprising for someone who follows closely. They hold opposing views on pretty much everything, Yang is just great at framing very progressive ideas as common sense policy, he's not all that far from a Warren or a Sanders on the issues he's a better communicator

Bernie was solid on JRE but the Presidential election won't be fought on one hour policy discussions which is where he does best.

Also re: all those non moderates, stuff that happened in the 80s or earlier does not apply to the current electorate, the boomers were young then, and Gen X/Millenials/Gen Z weren't in the electorate. What counted as moderate or liberal then and now are completely different. Reagan would be considered a RINO in 2019 and a few decades before that the parties held vastly different positions/support bases. The sample size for Presidential elections for any particular generation is tiny. Clinton and Kerry and Gore all came close but lost as moderates, Obama won as a semi-moderate but not the most moderate candidate in the field that cycle, Clinton won as a moderate but in a 3 way race in 1992 with a weird dynamic. The biggest thing in common that Ds who have won the Presidency in the last few decades have is charisma, with the possible exception of Carter and that was mostly the fallout from Nixon still. Charisma and public speaking skill seem to be worth more than being a liberal or a moderate. The Democrats have never nominated a turn out the base liberal in the post 9/11 era so we have no idea what will happen if they do that up against an unpopular Republican incumbent who has a very passionate base but limited appeal to moderates himself. Every 4 years more boomers/silents are dying and more of Gen Z are coming of age to vote and every 4 years the percentage of the American electorate that consists of minorities is increasing.

For what it's worth I completely agree someone like Yang who speaks logically and without emotion or identity-politics type language is the best bet to beat Trump but obviously it's a ridiculous long shot for him to win the nomination. Gabbard has a ton of her own issues imo and can't win the nomination. I honestly haven't looked into Buttigieg in enough detail but I think being gay may still be too much baggage with the old boomers who his schtick might otherwise appeal to even in 2019; and those that it doesn't matter to are voting for any D nom anyway for the most part.

I still think all of the D contenders start as a small fav against Trump but it's way too far from election day to say with any certainty what's going to happen (other than certain Dems like say Delaney or Gillibrand or Williamson aren't going to be President)

I can't see any scenario in which Trump wins in a landslide either; his appeal is just too limited to win a non-close election; either side could win a close election but if it's a landslide Trump is gone.

Will you be a sport and just give us a little more?

I feel the same way about Buttchug. When he burst on the scene, he seemed so different in that he was poised and sharp, and gave an informed and well-reasoned response to every question thrown at him in interviews I watched. Add that to the military record, intersectionality cred for being a member of the queer community (without flaunting it in a way that puts off conservatives), youth—I snapped up the 30:1 line I saw on him. But now he's going full ****** on the "Trump is a white nationalist" nonsense and trying to guilt-trip all former Trump voters. How can he not see that's not the path to victory? I think Trump calling him Alfred E. Newman really got to him.

The only man whose vote I know is my dad's, and he favors Warren of all the Dem candidates. She does come off as an even less charismatic and much farther left version of Hillary, but unless I see a poll showing men's antipathy toward her, I'm not inclined to think she's unelectable. There's even a thread in the Politics forum from some spaz who says he will vote only for a woman. And in today's soy-based political climate on the left, I don't think you should underestimate that sentiment.

This is a really common position among people on the right actually. There are a large cohort of Trump voters that are former Democrats. The left just went too far too fast for me to keep up. I like Trump but I am not so married to him that I wouldn't consider taking a look at Yang. He has the most exciting ideas/interesting things to say among the candidates... at least for someone like me. Refuses to bash Trump supporters and focuses on going forward. And he's not wrong, the economy is changing rapidly. AI is going to inevitably change that job market, perhaps at a pace that nothing else ever has. Having someone to speak about this honestly is a breath of fresh air. He is also not afraid to appeal middle class workers in the rustbelt states. I have no problem with him appealing to the social justice cohort as long as there is some attempt at unity. He seems to walk the line better than any candidate I have seen.

I actually like Gabbard too. I don't know that I would vote for her but I would absolutely listen to what she has to say. Her verbal beatdown of Kamala was the best moments of the debate so far. I remember watching her and thinking holy ****. I actually already knew Kamala had some potential ethical liabilities during her days as a prosecutor but I had no idea it was that bad. Tulsi may have just ended her whole career.

What's perhaps even more funny is that Kamala was just being repeatedly bashed that entire debate and didn't put up any resistance at all. It was kind of just like "well, you got me!". After watching Trump for so long I am not used to seeing someone take a beatdown like that.

Personal opinions belong in the politics forum. This is the sports betting forum. PropPlayer, make me moderator of this thread.

Your first one's free.



NO EXCEPTIONS

Talking about politics isn't in the purview of politics betting thread? All of this information is relevant to making bets and shorts....

Guessing you have some partisan disagreements with what is being said?

Not when you or anyone else injects their personal opinions about politics into it. It's a fine line, but TomG is bang on the money. This thread should be about gambling. There's a politics forum for your own opinions.

Would you list or number the posts that cross the line? I really don't want offend anyone here with an opposing viewpoint.

Well think of it this way.

Sporting Events Forum: "lol Angels suck and Chris Sale is good."
Sports Betting Forum: "Great value in Ohtani HRR u2.0 -130 today classic LvL situation with Sale wOBA vs. Lefties of xxx"

Apply that logic to Politics forum vs. a political betting thread. Take a look at what the candidates are trading at on PredictIt or wherever, offer up an opinion on that price, and give your reasons why. It's a betting thread. So, you know, let's talk about betting.

I could buy this argument if there was a number of political elections every day. However, the next significant betting event (3rd Democratic debate) doesn’t even happen for more than a month. Unlike many other betting events, presidential elections happen relatively infrequently. This means that the stone-cold data is not as available or reliable. There is also substantially more variability given the social changes that can take place in-between elections. As a result, we have to utilize social context more so than for almost any other event. While not being a factor in many betting decisions, context becomes hugely important in political betting.

I have changed my avatar and location to something that you and hedgie will both find more acceptable. Hopefully this token of goodwill will allow me to post unabated about presidential politics in a presidential politics betting thread.

There will be 2 types of people voting for Biden

1- Anyone but TRUMP, and Biden is the least radical socialist

2- Biden is the most moderate of the 20+ candidates so far


it seems Obama is a conservative compared to most of the democrat candidates

last two posts are cancer

You guys act like this is about being sharp... it's not. It's about seeing a few slightly right-leaning posts and then deciding that the direction of the conversation needed to be changed.

I'm glad it happened though because it's the perfect microcosm of politics in 2019. A group of people respectfully talking about something and then others coming in stifling the conversation if they don't like it. Quite frankly it doesn't bode well for Democrats in 2020.