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What if it’s not close ? – politicalbetting.com
What if it’s not close ? – politicalbetting.com
Cards on the table, I think Kamala Harris will be the next President of the United States.
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Not big stakes though, just reinvesting some if my winnings from the Kamala nomination.
Oh, and first.
For example, will he see the usually safely Republican states of Texas and Missouri as ‘swing states?’ If not, might his presence on the ballot put further pressure on Trump on races that look set to be very tight?
Florida should be considered a possible swing state too.
Do we have a list yet of where he is and isn’t going to be nominated?
Liz Truss was a better PM than Boris Johnson, says Anthony Seldon
She may have traumatised the economy, but her predecessor debased public life, Britain’s foremost political biographer claims in new book serialised by The Times Magazine
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/liz-truss-was-a-better-pm-than-boris-johnson-says-anthony-seldon-p836g9lql
The downfall of Liz Truss — by those who were there
Her premiership was the shortest and most chaotic in British history. In his new book, Anthony Seldon talks to the key aides, allies and civil servants who witnessed the arrogance, the rows, the tears and the meltdowns
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/liz-truss-downfall-those-who-were-there-dxbrqwv3p
Not only didn’t outlast a lettuce, could barely outlast a cheese soufflé.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-suffers-unintentionally-funny-meltdown-dncs-final-night-rcna167928
He’s coming across badly compared to Biden, never mind Harris.
Present at the tutorial was Jacob Rees-Mogg, hoping to be her chancellor. Did she need this turbocharging? Even some of her most ardent ideological supporters had reservations. “Their radicalism gave fresh tinder to something that was already burning too brightly within Liz,” said one. Ideas flew around the room.
Days later, scrapping the cap on bankers’ bonuses was mentioned. “Let’s go for it!” Reducing the 45p tax rate? “Long overdue.” “How about replacing all direct taxes with a flat 20p rate of income tax?” “Great idea, Jacob.” This last proposal was nicknamed “Estonia” (a reference to a similar policy adopted there) and Rees-Mogg “estimated it would cost £41 billion”. “I’d long been attracted to the idea of flat-rate taxes,” Truss said later.
“These guys were deadly serious,” recalled one adviser. He watched with horror as those present vied with each other to produce the most radical and outlandish ideas, none more so than Rees-Mogg. “What is the number one problem with the UK energy system?” he asked. Silence. “Not enough nuclear power,” he said, answering his own question. “We need more small reactors in the UK.” “How would you do it?” someone asked. “We should get a nuclear submarine to dock at Liverpool and plug it into the grid. That would show people it was safe.”
“I was worried,” Kwarteng said later. “Liz was losing her perspective.
https://x.com/CalltoActivism/status/1827097908727996809/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1827097908727996809¤tTweetUser=CalltoActivism
Truss was continuing to change inwardly, according to those who had known her for several years, becoming tetchier, more distrustful and imperious. Never comfortable with challenge, she was now even more intolerant and suspicious of those who queried her judgment.
An illustration came when the possibility of Suella Braverman as home secretary arose in conversation. “Surely not,” said one of her team, bursting out laughing. Truss marched the aide into the garden. “It’s not your place to offer advice on who I’m going to have in my cabinet. You’re lucky to be on the team. Stay in your lane,” she shouted.
People noticed that her trait of humiliating her team in front of others became more pronounced. “She couldn’t abide any contention. It was either all in with her or all out. A very peculiar personality type,” said an aide.
That wasn't an Orwellian nightmare.
The joy and the peril of politics is that none of us knows but let's hope you're right.
Most of the swing states are within 1% or so for Trump or Harris. That’s far too close for comfort. Harris needs a boost of 3-4 percentage points to be comfortable. Right now she isn’t.
Laughing from afar at Braverman or any of them being in high office is reasonable but not if you've chosen to work for the clowns.
"I thought this was an excellent speech, delivered by someone who’s become a pretty good — maybe even very good — politician."
In fairness to her she has had very little time to flesh out a program. But she needs to get more specific.
The swing states remain close with Trump ahead in Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada on average and Harris ahead in Wisconsin and Michigan on average and Pennsylvania and Arizona tied. Ohio is comfortably Trump still in most polls, even more so than Florida
On the one hand
Trump just looks like he’s going through the motions. He was up for a revenge run against a fellow geriatric. Sleepy Joe. That’s been snatched from him and he doesn’t know what to do. He looks old and he looks and sounds stale.
Project 2025 has landed as an attack. Many Americans realise the Republicans are after their right to manage their sex lives the way they see fit. Abortion, Contraception. It’s kryptonite and it’s being tied to Trump/Vance. Trump and Vance are in the becroom and it will be a big motivator for the young and women.
But the polls... Democrats have been outperforming the polls in elections pretty much consistently during Biden’s term. I don’t know why, but it’s true. It looks like Democrats are just more motivated to vote at the moment.
The primary. It became clear that many Repubs were protest voting against Trump’s candidacy. Haley continued to score well when not on the ballot. That’s a very high degree of dissatisfaction. Some will peg their nose and vote for Trump. But many will not, they will either not vote or vote for Harris.
And that’s before the insurrection, Trump’s record, the felonies etc.
On the other
Yeah, America is deeply divided. And Trump can attack on the economy, notwithstanding that inflation has been a global post Covid phenomenon. That’s it.
So it’s down to turnout and undecideds. Both will enormously break for Harris imho. The enthusiasm gap is palpable. And once the bandwagon starts rolling, it could turn into a blowout. Americans hate a loser. And Trump increasingly looks like a loser.
Best bet for me: Harris to win Iowa. Not that dissimilar to the adjoining south Minnesota seat that Walz held in Congress. Has been trending R but maybe not so far that the Dems couldn’t pull it back in a good year.
And a hail mary: Dems to win Kansas, has been edging towards them for a while and received the full impact of Republican nuttiness during Brownback’s tenure. In an utter blow out I could see this flipping. Unlikely but I’m having a couple of quid.
On the whole I agree that there is a small but definite possibilty KH could win bigly, but there's a dearth of opportunities to profit from this. Ideally you would want a spread bet, but the generally admirable Sporting Index are very cautious with its politics markets and unlikely to chalk up their boards until much closer to the election, by which time everyone will have sussed out what is going to happen.
Betfair isn't a lot better. The State markets offer some value but they are short of liquidity and likely to remain so for quite some time. It seems therefore that we have to just hope Donald stays competitve enough for long enough to provide some real competition, although looking at that Fox clip I should say the chances are diminishing daily.
I just don't know objectively how this went from a betting perspective because the usual metrics (ie how did the speech go?) seem to be way out of date and completely irrellevant now, people just see what they want to find.
My twitter/X feed has shown none of those items - literally the only "outside" story I saw was a right wing pointless and incredibly tackless attack of Walz's teenage emotional son.
Prior to that it was 1988.
I don't see that conditions are right for Trump to win the most votes this time, even if he may get the most votes in the right places.
South Carolina too, with a large black vote and military too, but surely too out of reach for the Dems at present.
I suppose, as with all social media, it depends upon what the algorithm decides you want.
"Robinson has promoted various far-right conspiracy theories, engaged in Holocaust denial,[2][3] denied sexual assault allegations against various prominent figures,[4] and has often made inflammatory anti-LGBT,[5][6][7] antisemitic,[8] racist,[9] anti-atheist,[10] and Islamophobic statements.[6][11] He opined in 2023 that abortion should be completely outlawed in North Carolina, despite his paying for an abortion in the 1980s.[12]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Robinson_(American_politician)
Harris will very likely win North Carolina. Its 16 EC votes largely negate the impact of Nevada and Arizona combined (6 and 11 respectively).
Although I expect her to win both too.
Florida should be a trading bet too. There will be some upcoming close polls. It lkely goes into the election as Toss Up.
My Twitter (the 'For You' section, not the 'following' section seems to be filled with people condemning the mocking of the children. The mocking comments are not just nasty; they play badly with the public as well.
With social media, and Twitter, the algorithm is king. It largely decides what you see. And I don't for one moment believe that what Twitter and Musky Baby has open-sourced is the algorithm they use, and especially the algorithm they now use.
Interesting information on Haley voters pivoting to Harris, but I'm afraid I can't recall where I saw it.
Domestic pleasures for a Saturday
I did my first full garden waste bin for a couple of years this morning, having successfully pruned and shredded some large shrubs.
More energy is returning - now it's time for an autumn Spring Clean, and to reacquaint myself with the hedge trimmers and the loppers, and I hope to find some autumn fruit this year in the jungle.
And it's time to get a stone man in to repair the 5-6m of 150 year old stone wall that needs a rebuild. That sounds a little expensive.
I seem finally to be breaking even on the solar revenue vs energy bills that I have been chipping away at for nearly a decade. Checking the numbers 12 months gas / elec is just under £1200 charged including exports to Octopus, balance increased by £400 over the year, and now that the new neighbours have crown lifted their pair of listed trees once the panels are cleaned I should get that £800 back from the feed in tariff.
Have a good day everyone.
If she were facing anybody except Donald Trump I don't think she'd have a prayer.
And also, when did that fuckwit Kwarteng become this Jiminy Cricket style observer/voice of reason within the Truss administration? It was him that dropped the minibudget, declared it was just the beginning, then buggered off to America whilst the crisis enveloped the Government. Now he makes a living going around slagging off Truss. Ghastly man.
"Harris has a larger pool of voters that say they could see themselves voting for her instead of their current choice (25%)
Trump's pool of potential voters is slightly smaller (20%)"
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1827184543259844752?t=HTnhyjv-G4BUInvPyoWhCw&s=19
And people on here complain about Starmer and means testing of Winter Fuel Payment...
There come a moment when every revolution eats its own children. I think the Tea Party has hit that moment by choosing a 78 year old in rapid decline with multiple criminal convictions and a track record of losing as their standard bearer.
This is the 2020 Potus election by congressional district.
F1: some wind and rain. Passing's difficult but a safety car is eminently possible, so things may be tricky to predict. At the moment, ok with having an early bet on Hamilton each way for the win. Qualifying's looking like a five horse race.
You could probably stay up for the whole thing and then jack it in and go for a nice long sleep after, whilst Seldon wrote a (very) short book about it.
The division is so entrenched it’s a matter of (voter) identity and the election hinges on a few thousand voters in a few states who haven’t chosen a side. It’s always going to be close.
The markets are poor this time round.
At present, I expect a narrow win as she'll campaign in the right places and smile, but this isn't going to be an Obama, (Bill) Clinton or Regan landslide.
I also don’t think this will be close @Nigelb
Harris has the Big Mo. She’s affable, youthful, and offers a future.
However, this may be wishful thinking. Just because I think she’s the obvious sensible choice doesn’t mean middle America will.
Back home, two things.
First, mega rich Anthony Seldon doesn’t think Truss was so bad. Doesn’t have a knife-edge mortgage or a budget to watch.
Second, I have buyer’s remorse. I kind of expected it, just not on Day 2. Okay, so Labour are better than the Conservatives but jeez they have disappointed. ‘Country first’ just = profoundly unprincipled.
Will that help the tories? Not if they choose Badenoch, which they probably will because the decaying moribund membership are hellbent on taking their party with them to their imminent graves.
And there’s the assessment from the lady who first brought you news of the Labour landslide.
Have a nice weekend
xx
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-RVFW9Qe7Gs
Yes. But I would caution that the extreme resilience of the MAGA bubble makes betting risky.
Many people have been outlasted by irrational markets.
So far the 45% or so Trump vote is remarkably solid.
He is an utterly ludicrous candidate, rationally. If you made up his story so far, an editor would class it as magic realism. Of a very dark kind.
One of the motivations for the header was, in a small way, to try to encourage a bit more activity.
But there's a couple of months to go, and a lot of stuff still to happen.
In particular new voter registrations are very weighted to women, a Kamala demographic.
https://x.com/tbonier/status/1827100342179524692?t=cieStGqi098RQnB0kFTwJg&s=19
The header isn't a prediction about that - it's a what if.
But the evidence of the last month is thar Harris is, perhaps, a far smarter politician than she'd previously been given credit for.
It’s the Trump Party, now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIiPhWQWINQ
Now I know and I support a landlord's right to bar anyone they like from their pub. [just having Peggy Mitchell flashbacks there] but it's the blatant hypocrisy that's hard to stomach. Do right-wingers care about cancel culture or not or just when it sorts them?
I had a friend over from Louisiana in july but talk to them most days, she is a republican voter. She thinks Harris is useless, she also doesn't have time for trump. However the project 2025 stuff has brought her to decide that she has to vote democrat this election....in her words "my daughter is 14....I don't want her growing up in a country that's governed the way the project 2025 people think it should be"
Thanks for the header Nigelb. I can't really see evidence that it won't be close, but agree on the lack of betting opportunities.
I don’t like Labour especially. But Starmer & Co. haven’t done much yet.