I’ve been pushing the conclusions of the betting markets, as shown at Intrade, for predicting the outcome of the election.
There’s been a big change. Bettors are now calling Ohio to go for Romney:
This is what is required for a narrow Romney victory. Currently Intrade’s bettors are predicting a 275-263 Romney win in the electoral college.
N.B. Ohio shows up as bright red because I highlighted it to show the details at the bottom right. It’s actually the palest pink when you click on it.
BTW: Marginal Revolution reports that someone tried to manipulate the market on Intrade after last week’s debate. They go on to note, because there is money to be made, someone who tries to push the price one way or the other is offering up an arbitrage profit to serious traders, and may end up strengthening the conclusions of the market.
Are we looking at the same thing? I am on intrade's site now and both show Obama contract for both the US and Ohio as still above 50%, and neither have been below 50% since August.
Posted by: Trent McBride | October 24, 2012 at 02:03 PM
I have no idea. All I know is that I peaked at it around Noon, and it had changed for the first time in about a week. What's shown is the screen capture I made at that time. As I write this at 10:30 PM MDT on Wednesday, it is still showing Ohio for Romney.
Posted by: David Tufte | October 24, 2012 at 10:33 PM
Now ... hmmm ... the map comes from a mashup that purports to show the Intrade data correctly. Perhaps it doesn't!
Posted by: David Tufte | October 24, 2012 at 10:34 PM
As a corrollary, I took another look at the numbers from the most recent 8 quarters to see where Obama is sitting at, in terms of avg. real GDP growth. The most recent quarter of 1.3 has dragged his avg. rate down to 1.8, closer to the 1.4 threshold where incumbents have always lost.
Posted by: Kit Lloyd | October 25, 2012 at 09:08 AM
Even though that result is from my class' project, I'm not very convinced of the result. I just don't think we have the holy grail for predicting election outcomes in macroeconomics.
Posted by: Dave Tufte | October 25, 2012 at 10:11 AM
BTW: Today's map does seem to confirm Trent's comment from yesterday. I think what may be going on is that the raw data is updated continuously, but the map itself is not.
So, today, they have Obama winning Ohio (and the election), but Romney picking up New Hampshire.
Posted by: Dave Tufte | October 25, 2012 at 10:13 AM