Trump +170 now and drifting. Might have missed my last chance to load more not Trump -13x etc, ah well, we'll see how it goes now I can't see it moving past +200 until after the third debate at least

Bit of relief that the first debate didn't move the needle and if anything helped Biden a bit, it was definitely a mistake by the Trump campaign to portray him as a senile bumbling old Alzheimers patient incapable of debating because it moved the bar so low that Biden speaking coherently feels like 'exceeding expectations'. The Trump campaign hasn't been great at managing expectations to win the news cycle etc, and just not that long to go now

I can't imagine Harris/Pence move the needle much but VP debate is up next. Harris has likability issues, but so does Pence in that he's a fundamentalist who calls his wife mother and can't be alone in a room with a woman who isn't his wife, Harris should obviously mop the floor with Pence in the debate so expectations are a bit higher there imo, but I don't see anyone switching their vote as a result of the VP debate especially with another Trump/Biden debate a week later

Imagine having a candidate so bad that him speaking coherently exceeds expectations, and thinking you have a great bet.

I mean, sure, anything can happen but geez

The whole idea is they're falsely set expectations that yield a negative ROI from the Trump campaign, because people who believe Biden is an Alzheimers zombie are Trump's base and moderates can see for themselves that while he's old and whatnot in the debates he's a perfectly functional adult

My counterpoint would be... imagine seeing your candidate down 13 points in the popular vote in today's poll and trailing by 6-11 in all national polls usually and trailing in every key swing state by about 6-9 points in the midwest and thinking Trump is the right side right now

Biden isn't a lock by any means due to postal vote and voter suppression shenanigans but he's definitely back to the 70% or so he was at a month or two ago before the Dejoy stuff and slight tightening in the race

Clinton never led Trump by anything close to this margin and if she'd won an extra 1% or so of the vote nationwide she takes the states she needs - Trump will need to be within 4 points or so of Biden to have a chance and even then he has to run good to run the table on the swing states he needs, he's not a fav until he's within 2.5% or so of the popular vote prob or about the margin he lost to Clinton by.

I fully admit Biden is an uninspiring candidate but he's also a safe tested and vetted candidate in a time of national turmoil when the other candidate is widely hated by slightly over half the the population. Biden doesn't inspire me at all but I made sure I put express postage on my postal ballot and tracking and so on and tracked it until received by the supervisor of elections in my area in the US, I requested a ballot but didn't bother following up when it didn't show up in 2016 due to just assuming Clinton was going to win. This time I put in the effort to make sure my vote is counted. Sure, he doesn't inspire me the way some other potential candidates like AOC or Yang or Warren would have but he's a pair of safe hands to stop America's slide, because we can't afford for America to lose dominant superpower status to China and if Trump continues to tear the country apart that's what the world will look like in a few decades. I might have chosen to live primarily abroad, but i'm still an American as well as an Australian and I don't want to see America fail like so many of Trump's businesses have over the years.

I'm both hoping and expecting enough people aren't complacent this time. Obviously I have partisan bias in that I dislike Trump, but the data does also suggest Biden wins at a higher clip than the price I got and if that data changes I will sell my position/switch sides, but right now being on Trump appears to be hugely -EV unless he can dramatically improve his polling in the next month.

I agree, we are all partisan here. Some of us I guess can't help but show it. But I disagree with your premise of having " a candidate ".
When I post that Biden is ahead in the polls, I post it because Biden is ahead in the polls. Sure, I prefer Biden, but if Trump was leading in the polls I'd post it.
Don't forget the old sports betting mantra, don't bet with your emotions.

Trump positive for covid19. All political lines OTB at BM...

Hope everyone got their -130 life hedges in

Drifted to +200ish on Betfair then suspended everywhere basically

Trump can't campaign for a couple weeks at least even if hes asymptomatic which is def a negative for him since he's currently behind in the polls.

To be honest he deserves symptoms his selfish policies brought this on the nation. My state in aus is covid free and all of Australia is on that path due to our political leadership they had the political will to hard lock down and close state borders to contain the Vic outbreak even nsw has a week with no community transmission now and state borders good to reopen next month unless things get worse etc

According to Bloomberg radio this morning, some people in the White House said that Trump was feeling exhausted Wednesday. They thought it might have been from the campaign but were also concerned that it could be covid.
To be honest, I thought that it was only a matter of time, and I'm surprised it took this long. Melania is also sick by the way.

Edit: typical Trump, he tweeted it himself.

So Biden gave it to him on Tuesday

No, it was China. Chiiina.

Why'd they name it after Mexican beer then?

Lol.
Because Trump hates Mexicans. Of course.

Your counterpoint is 100% based on polls which made hillary -500 last election. IDK why you still put faith in those polls.

Z Biden is polling +4 over what Hillary was polling in October 2016.
It's not the same. And now with the president getting infected. We do not yet know how exactly that will impact things.
But if you still want to put your money on Trump, be my guest.

Edit: I realize it's too late for many. Unless one can hedge their bets? But I'm a noob. I should stay quiet. Maybe it will be a Trump landslide? Who knows?

FMP

Betfair have just unlocked the market.

Biden 1.56-1.58
Trump 2.92-2.96
Harris 80-95
Pence 60-75

Changing fast.

I always say it takes two views to make a market.

But yes, even with a 2016-style polling error Biden wins.

And pollsters, like generals, are always trying to fight the last war so they're unlikely to make the same error twice.

Me: The polls mean nothing imo, do you have any other evidence?

You: But Biden's polling EVEN BETTER than Hill-dog

How can I even argue with this?

Coach: Need 50% equity to call this overbet but you only have 6 outs, gotta fold here

Zplusz: But there is no evidence the river won't be one of my outs! *calls*

Trump flown to Walter Reed. He's taken the highest dose of Regeneron's unapproved antibody cocktail. This is real serious.

I didn't want to spoil Chuck's great post and chime in right away.
But Z, no one is twisting your arm dude. Do whatever you want. Jesus.

looks like all our bets are getting cancelled

rip

The poling error was 1.5%

Trump would need an error of more like 4% this time to be live on current polling averages and 6% or so to be a fav

The polls can just as easily miss in the other direction too, in 2010/2014/2016 etc Rs overperformed, 2006/2008/2018 Ds etc etc

People who think because Trump won a 30/70 last time that it happens every time and polls are worthless are living in a fantasy land, it's called margin of error for a reason.

Trump had AQ against AK in 2016 and happened to spike a queen. That will happen 3 in 10 times or so and happened 1 out of 1 time in reality. It also happens 0 out of 1 times quite often too.

Right now he has AQ vs AK again, but there's a chance if things don't change my election day polling wise it's more like A7 vs AA if he's down 10% nationally and 6% in the key swing states on election day

Trump was within the margin of error last time, just a few percent in his favour

This time he'd need a polling miss OUTSIDE the margin of error which did not happen in 2016

Yes, it's possible and yes, things could change in the next month, but he is objectively a decent underdog right now if the election is fair/no cheating beyond basic voter suppression which always happens

Also if I recall correctly I got Hillary -3xx a day or so before the election split between EC and popular vote (shoulda obv gone all pop vote in hindsight) - still my worst election result since I started betting elections in 2008 or so, but wasn't as huge a disaster as it could have been since I had pop vote too

Re market being suspended I still don't understand it at all - by all means suspend it temporarily if Trump (or Biden etc) dies but I don't see any reason why bets wouldn't stand just because one of the candidates got Covid even if Trump dies they should stand obv thats why part of my bet was a couple cents worse on Field over Trump than on Biden directly

Betfair suspended again.

LTPs were:

Biden 1.52
Trump 3.4
Harris 110
Pence 30

(of course that doesn't mean all these prices were available to back at the same time as each other - they're just the last prices an actual trade was done at on either side of the to back/to lay spread).

assuming trump comes out of this okay, you have to think he is at a massive advantage compared to where he was before catching covid, right?

his own base is energised. everyone loves a comeback story. if the goal of campaigning is to rally support, i imagine people will understand he couldn't show up for his stop on the campaign trail as he was in the hospital battling the chinese virus

moderates shift towards him as him surviving backs his narrative that the virus isn't that dangerous and we should re-open

moderates also shift towards trump after being disgusted by the far left saying things like he deserved this and wishing death upon him

the centre-left may soften their hatred towards him a bit and much of the motivation to vote biden is just to spite trump. that motivation dissipates a bit if he's just recovered from a serious illness

the far left are just as mad as they ever were so that's a wash. maybe they exhaust themselves so much rooting for his death that they don't even have the energy to vote come november.

There's no guarantee he gets through it before the election some people have symptoms for months and stories of him struggling to breathe and being admitted to hospital won't help the 'just a flu bro' crowd but to be honest almost anyone who thinks Covid isnt a real threat is voting Trump or not voting already. Obviously he's a fav to be fine in a few weeks but there is a single digit chance he dies or a double digit chance he takes longer to recover or suffers permanent damage of some sort to his lungs or heart or whatever else as happens to some people who get more severe cases.

He may get some sympathy but I think most peoples minds are made up and as i've said all along this will come down to turnout - average or high turnout and Biden wins, very low turnout and Trump wins - the pandemic may help Trump with low turnout but it may not with the expansion of mail voting, it's hard to know

Biden's pulled his negative ads and just running positive ads now if that means anything for the thread I don't really think it's a plus or minus really at the moment

I think Biden's hanging around at about the 70% fav mark still and Trump catching Covid doesn't make a huge difference once way or the other to his election prospects - the market seems to think it hurts them, but that's probably because he's behind and can't campaign for a couple weeks but 'will trump be okay from Covid' is probably a better narrative for him than 'who does he owe 400 million dollars to and why is he paying $750 in taxes if he's a billionaire'

We'll have to wait and see what polls say over the next few days to see whether it's helped or hurt him so far