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I’m feeling more than a bit pessimistic about the result 😟
Can’t help feeling the underlying support among the Trump faction will come out in droves where it counts whereas the Biden faction may pay too much attention to the polls that put them ahead in the same places and as a result may be less inclined to get out as they think they’ve got it in the bag....
I really hope I’m wrong, and the figures are a bit / lot stronger for Biden, but all ( nearly ) polls gave 2016 to Hillary, and look what happened then.
Trump may be a has been bankrupt, in it for himself and really not all bothered with the well being of the country at large
BUT
He does know how to spin a yarn and fool a lot of the people a lot of the time 😢
The best available are no better than 15/8.
That in itself is pretty worrying. I'd assumed the odds would be much longer than that from the way everyone's been talking. 😕
I guess it's only a two horse race, but still...
I guess it’s only a two horse race, but still…
People on the ground (as opposed to those quoting polls) think so.
It's certainly doable for trump
He lost the popular vote by 3 million last time but still got it!
The swing states will be crucial
That's why he & the republicans will be throwing everything they can at voter suppression and disqualifying postal votes etc - he's spent a year undermining them!
As ever with Trump, there's no real low bar he wont cross, no matter how damaging it is to the USA (parallels with cummings/brexit abound)
That in itself is pretty worrying. I’d assumed the odds would be much longer than that from the way everyone’s been talking.
Bookies odds aren't a reflection of how likely something is. They are a reflection of how much money they are going to lose if you win. That's why odds change all the time as people bet, when the chances of whatever it is stay the same.
No, they are a reflection of both. I used to work for William Hill molgrips 😉
Edit: ignore that, I’m confusing myself.
On that accumulator at William Hill. I always like a small bet on these things, and thought that's worth a punt
However on their site (laptop and mobile) there's no option for accumulator (there is for footie etc). Am I doing something wrong or has that window closed?
An advice appreciated!
Cheers
Anyone listen to Jenna Ellis defending Trump’s “poll watchers” on Americast? Utterly staggering. 🤪
I would say it's technically not an accumulator as the events are related, will probably be some kind of special market. I can't check cos I've blocked gambling sites on my laptop!
No, they are a reflection of both. I used to work for William Hill molgrips
Well yes but surely the probability of something happening is rolled up into the bookie's exposure, no?
And given we don't know how many people have placed bets on an outcome, we as punters can't disentangle the probability from the exposure, can we?
Not trying to mansplain to you, genuinely curious - I may not bet myself but I find this kind of game theory rather interesting.
The initial odds offered by bookmakers are based on calculated probability of results from various bits of data, with some 'house edge' margin added on to give their profit (over many many many bets, over a long time).
So if they reckon if a particular match was played 10 times one team would win only 1 of the games, the actual odds of that team winning one match are 10/1 they reckon, but they will give you odds of say 8.5/1, so there is 15% 'value' in that bet for the bookie, evened out by effectively being repeated thousands/millions of times.
If lots and lots of people go for the same bet, they need to reduce their exposure on that bet winning so they reduce the odds from their starting point. This is why betting on England in football is always stupid as they have short odds from 'patriotic' betting.
In horse racing and greyhounds they also have flagged accounts with notes such as 'connected to x trainer', and when the punter rings up wanting £20k on a 50/1 chance they pretty much immediately slash the odds while they all scramble to quickly stick a bet on that horse with another bookie on their phone. 😛
5/1 on a Republican clean sweep. Bet placed!
If Trump wins I think I will lose all faith in humanity how can someone be so bad at their job but still win... Actually Boris seems to have managed it. What ever way this goes I really go think its gonna be all out riots in the states people wont be happy so this so much built up frustration, anger, hurt and hate on both sides its never going to end well.
a Republican clean sweep
What’s that? The House, the Senate and the White House? Or is there another element?
They are already saying it might look like Trump is ahead from the early results that come in and they plan to declare victory and employ lawyers to try and stop counting the rest of the ballots. He's admitted the second part openly to the press. That's also part of the plan to make it look like the Dems have stolen the election to their rabid, armed mass of supporters.
These are truly scary times.
and employ lawyers to try and stop counting the rest of the ballots
How can they do that in a "free" country?
How can they do that in a “free” country?
Hillary in an interview a month ago said their strategy is to not let Biden concede and have an army of lawyers ready to fight in the courts.
Trump is planning on established law being enforced. The evil genius.
Keep in mind that, while it's possible that the polling error favours Biden and Trump might squeak out a narrow electoral college victory if he can win Florida and Pennsylvania, it's just as possible that the polling error favours Trump. Biden has as much chance of winning Texas, giving him a landslide victory, as Trump does of winning Pennsylvania.
https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1322969948256411648
Trump is planning on established law being enforced.
Utter rubbish. The established law is that individual states are responsible for holding elections to appoint voters to the Electoral College. In some states, only votes that are received by election day are counted, in others, votes that are postmarked by election day are accepted. One of the major reasons for this is that military personnel serving overseas may face delays in having their ballots delivered.
Final vote counts are neither possible nor required on election day. The definitive tally of votes won't be known until every eligible vote is counted, which may take a week or more (following the applicable state law). In many cases (California, for example), the margin for one party is so overwhelming that late ballots cannot possibly change the outcome. In that case, an unofficial result will be published by newspapers, but the official result is never, ever announced on election day (because that's the law). If enough states have big margins like that, the overall winner will be obvious the next day, so the traditional thing is for the losing candidate to concede and let everyone get on with things.
What Trump is trying to claim is that only votes that are counted on election day should be accepted, i.e. that no late votes should be accepted, regardless of the law. That is absolutely not a valid legal position, there's no serious question about that. He knows it's bollocks, but it serves to rile up his supporters and gives him a rationale for refusing to concede, even if it's blindingly obvious that he's lost. Nothing to do with the law, just a desperate attempt to avoid acknowledging that he is a loser.
Worth a read.
In summary mail in votes skew a little toward Democrats but the main difference is the huge disparity between urban and rural areas. Rural areas, with fewer people have the votes counted much quicker than urban areas. Urban areas skew massively toward Democrats.
In states like Pennsylvania where they don't allow ballots to be processed ahead of election day this is a huge issue as it could take more than a week to count all the votes.
Trump declares himself the winner and calls all the "late" votes fraudulent.
Its almost guaranteed, what is interesting is how it will play out.
Can someone explain how to get odds/place a bet for an accumulator like the one mentioned above? I've never gambled before.
I'd just go into the betting shop but all 10 on my street have shut down! 2020 sure is wacky
At William hill on the betting page scroll down past the sports and look at US presidential elections #yourodds
And given we don’t know how many people have placed bets on an outcome, we as punters can’t disentangle the probability from the exposure, can we?
Well you won't know how much people have bet via the bookies, but if there's a market for it on a betting exchange, then you should be able to see exactly how much money has been backed and layed at each price, both matched an unmatched.
Betfair exchange here seemed to have politics and the US election markets listed, but showed no markets for me (but then I'm in Germany where afaik betting exchanges are "banned", rather than UK where they are big business). I imagine it's a shed load of $, £ and € bet, and rather liquid too.
all 10 on my street have shut down!
You should have supported your local betting shops a bit more. The whole industry is struggling due to the unfair decision to stop it taking a week's wages off some poor addict every five minutes. 🙂
At William hill on the betting page scroll down past the sports and look at US presidential elections #yourodds
I've tried this. It'll let you place multiple bets, but no option for an accumulator (which it gave when I tried a load of bets on football to see if it would be an option).
Can only assume that the poster who mentioned it hadnt actually tried to place it, but had just done the maths on what a payout would be (it's a process of multiplying the odds against each other). I placed a couple of bets anyway and hedged with their sign-up offer of a £50 credit (10 £5 bets) for an unsuccessful £1 bet on Trump to win.
Anyone who takes the Republican clean sweep option is nuts btw, that means Reps win President and control of Senate and House. Whatever else happens there is no way that the GOP will take control of the house, no way!
As above it's not really an accumulator like football matches IMO because the outcome of one is related to the likely outcome of the others.
There's an option there for clean sweep, but it's 4/1 now not 5/1
I think if it wasn't for 2016 and all the other surprising bullshit that's happened in the last 10 years, we'd be talking about how big Biden's win will be. He's 10 points ahead nationally and at least possibly going to win in Texas, which would be unthinkable at any other time.
The Democrats have done what they needed to, okay Biden isn't Bernie or Corbyn so those of a very left of centre persuasion think he's worse than Trump, but he's not.
Is he too old, probably, is he slightly handicapped by his Brain injuries, maybe, but it's not like Trump is completely sane or even of average intelligence. More importantly, is he White, Middle-Class and Folksy? Yes he is, so he nullifies a lot of Trumps rhetoric. Like it or not, Americans are generally racist, it's a racist country. They have very sharp racial lines.
I think Biden will win, the Democrats are downplaying their chances because they don't want it to seem too easy lest millions of voters decide they don't need to vote. The bigger questions are:
Will Trump go quietly, I mean obviously he won't. He certainly won't concede, he doesn't have the backbone to admit he's lost, there will be accusation of fraud, conspiracy theories, probably court action the lot, but will he actually leave the White House in January?
Will the Democrats win congress? Obama, as great a statesman as he was, didn't achieve nearly as much as he could, because the Democrats couldn't pass laws.
Anyone who takes the Republican clean sweep option is nuts btw, that means Reps win President and control of Senate and House. Whatever else happens there is no way that the GOP will take control of the house, no way!
Exactly. Trump might have a 10% chance of winning, Republicans might have a 35% chance of holding the Senate, but Democrats probably have a 99% chance of retaining the House. That means a 3.5% chance of having the Senate and White House, but a 0.035% chance of all three. That's assuming they're independent, which they're not, but it's getting too close to E-Day for things like terrorist attacks to drive voters to change their minds. That leaves polling error as the most likely reason for Republicans to win against the polls, but the polling errors will tend to be more independent. Short version, putting money on Republicans winning all three is basically just burning money. You'd need odds of 5000 to 1 to make it worthwhile.
those of a very left of centre persuasion think he’s worse than Trump,
No, they do not.
That’s also part of the plan to make it look like the Dems have stolen the election to their rabid, armed mass of supporters.
The armed mass supporters... they are just gun voyeurs, they show and tell, they bring their guns and to show you and tell you that they will do this or that, but in reality the moment the majority use them in anger will be the end of that type of gun ownership in the US, and they know it.
The question is also if he does lose, no doubt there will be conspiracies and fraud claims etc, but will he actually stir up violence amongst his supporters, and will they listen? Sadly I think yes, and yes. With most police being firmly pro Trump, things could get seriously ugly.
I think ultimately though the military would uphold the law/constitution, even if the police won't.
I think ultimately though the military would uphold the law/constitution, even if the police won’t.
I have no doubts about the military and federal police. I think people underestimate the local police. There might be a few nutters in the small towns, but most cops are not going to side with outright lawlessness.
The question is also if he does lose, no doubt there will be conspiracies and fraud claims etc, but will he actually stir up violence amongst his supporters, and will they listen? Sadly I think yes, and yes. With most police being firmly pro Trump, things could get seriously ugly.
I think ultimately though the military would uphold the law/constitution, even if the police won’t.
The US would do well to suspend his Twitter account on election night, in fact if they won't / can't someone should wrestle the phone out of his tiny hands.
Yes, he will tweet "fake news" he will at the very least tip toe around calling for armed up risings, and I suspect some parts of US Police will support him, although **** knows why.
I'm saying.... at least a few localised riots nationwide and several deaths linked to protests and more mass shootings linked to Trump in the next few years.
The US is a ****ed up place in parts.
Huge poll from Morning Consult just dropped. Canvassed 14,500 likely voters (most polls have a sample size between 600 and 1500). This means it has a margin of error of +/- 1% (as opposed to the normal +/- of 3-4%). So very accurate.
Puts Biden on 52% to Trump's 44%. So 8% lead.
Which tallies with the last 6 national polls prior to this one, which average at 7.85% lead for Biden.
Turnout this year is going to be very high. Some saying as high as 150million.
If we say 140million to be safe, 52% gives Biden 73million votes, Trump has 61.5. So an additional 11.5 million votes for Biden.
In 2016 Clinton beat Trump by just under 3million votes and he just managed to scrape through the electoral college.
This time Biden has an additional 8.5 million votes over and above what Clinton had.
Critically though, the electoral college doesn't work on a pure majority, and in theory Trump can win again using the same base that won it for him. Namely white voters and specifically non college educated white voters.
However, in order to do this he needs a properly convoluted route to win, most likely by taking Texas and Florida and Georgia (two too close to call and one within margin of error, with Biden ahead by 3 points in Florida and .2% in Georgia, and Trump ahead by .7% in Texas) as well as taking enough from the rust belt states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and Iowa). Biden is ahead by 8% in Minnesota and Wisconsin and by 5% in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Nevertheless if we accept that Minnesota and Wisconsin are too far out for the Orange baboon, then he needs to win Michigan and Pennsylvania (despite being 5 points down) as well as Ohio (.7% up and Iowa (2% up). In Texas he's 1.3% ahead, albeit the latest large scale poll (Morning consult again with margin of +/- 1%) shows a dead heat. Georgia is essentially all square, and Florida Biden is up 3%.
So Trump needs to win a bunch of states, all of which he is either behind in (in two states by more than 5%, above the standard margin of error) or essentially all square, other than Ohio and Iowa, both of which are well within the margin.
So doable, but very, very difficult.
However, where it gets really interesting is HOW he won in 2016, or more accurately WHO won it for him.
In 2016 Trump smashed the non-college educated white voters, winning 67% of a demographic that makes up approx 44% of the electorate. And crucially more than 50% of the electorate in the rust belt. Clinton got a paltry 28%.
Polls nationally show that Trump's base in this area has shrunk considerably, from 67% to 55%. Whilst Biden's has grown to 44%. This means that Trump loses approx 8million votes (41m to 33m) whilst Biden gains 10m (17m to 27m).
More importantly in key rust belt states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump's gone from 62% to 52% Michigan and from 64% to 52% in Pennsylvania. In the same states Biden goes from 31% to 45% and 32% to 39%.
So you have a picture whereby Trump has been haemorrhaging support nationally within the constituency that got him elected, and to the same extent within the core states that swung it for him and that he will need to carry this time to have any chance. Based on current polling he cannot win without at least one of Michigan or Pennsylvania, and probably both given that to only need one he would then have to win all of Florida, North Carolina and Arizona, all of which he is 2-3% behind in.
In other words, unless he pulls an absolutely enormous rabbit out of a very, very large hat, he is boogered!
but most cops are not going to side with outright lawlessness.
I dunno, I think lots of the police have been radicalised, essentially. They see liberal protestors as antifa terrorists - they were shown to be supporting the Proud Boys surreptitiously at recent marches etc, even offering advice on how to not get arrested etc
If they think the 'deep state' has stolen the election from Trump who knows how they will react.
Did I hear rightly that some Walmarts have pulled guns and ammo from the shelves in certain states for fear of violence after the election? Its seems absurd that an operation like them would remove money spinners from the shelves on moral grounds. But then again its 2020 innit.
Did I hear rightly that some Walmarts have pulled guns and ammo from the shelves in certain states for fear of violence after the election?
You heard right. The problem for the US is that I can't see exactly when it will be safe to return them, regardless of the outcome this week.
Unfortunately I reckon there will be riots regardless of who wins 😭
It’s just a matter of who riots and where .....
As a non-American I'm just wondering what Donald Trump has done or what policies he's put in place in the last 4 years that would make anyone want to vote for him?
The only thing I can see is that unemployment continued on a downward trend until COVID-19 hit.
what Donald Trump has done or what policies he’s put in place in the last 4 years that would make anyone want to vote for him?
Spaaaaacee Fooooorccceee!!! Although he didn't start that, it's been in the works for years.
The US system makes it tough to figure out who did what. The president might sign something into law even though congress, or a particular congress person was really responsible for it happening.
It the president might sign an executive order which is entirely his or her work.
Probably the biggest thing he's done is appoint a lot of judges at all levels, which will change the leaning of the legal system from top to bottom for years to come. That will appeal to right leaning and religious 'christians".