The main elections on November 6th are for 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate, 36 out of 50 state/district Governors, and 3 out of 5 territory Governors. This is an attempt to summarise the predictors. The following figures were taken between 11pm BST October 27th and 3:30am BST (2:30am GMT) October 28th 2018.
Comments
You're an outlier !
The odds for a Dem majority in the Senate are appalling, especially if the 2 "independents" are also not counted as seems to be the case (I have given up trying to work out how an "independent" came so close to being the Democratic nominee for President in 2016). Take those 2 out and no majority looks attractive, if a tad optimistic from a Dem point of view.
In the House Ladbrokes odds for a Dem majority look pretty reasonable but their spread bet on 226.5 does not.
All in my personal opinion of course.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/paddington-station-delays-all-trains-to-and-from-major-transport-hub-cancelled-following-overhead-a3973891.html
Dems win the House Republicans retain the senate - but will we have services at Paddington disrupted again before 6 November.
It is relatively easy to get historical poll data, but historical info about modellers, academics, etc has to be digged out and historical betting odds are a nightmare: you have to pay or register as an academic. It's even worse when trying to construct the full book at a given moment, since sites like Oddschecker don't necessarily sample Con at the same time as Lab at the same time as Lib, etc. I've criticised PB in the past for not focussing on upcoming elections, but it's better to light a candle than curse the dark so I thought I'd have a go. I'll try to do a matching article next weekend, so then we'll have two snapshots and can try to discern trends.
In the UK, parties control their nomination processes jealously: usually only paid-up members can vote on who to adopt as a candidate, and often you need to be "approved" by the party before you can even be considered. Most places in the US, anyone can run in a primary under whichever ticket they chose. Sometimes that can result in weird mismatches, such as the former Sheriff of Milwaukee, David Clarke, who was a far-right Trump supporter but ran as a Democrat.
There is little in the way of party discipline in the British sense. There are Whips in Congress and party caucuses (like the PLP, 1922 Cttee etc). Voting against the party line on grounds of principle is accepted and respected. No-one ever gets suspended from a caucus or loses the party nomination for doing so (the primary system means everyone is subject to compulsory re-selection anyway) but parties can sanction persistent rebels by cutting off funding. Fund-raising is probably the most powerful way the parties have of "controlling" their candidates.
There is little formal ideology: there are no party manifestos. Parties do adopt a "platform" at their conventions (national, state, local) but these are usually just general statements of principles and no-one feels bound by them. They are pretty universally forgotten as soon as they are adopted.
Good, meaty bit of work VC.
Thank you both
... Bayesian.
Nice work, Mr. Viewcode.
Which they were of course.
CDU 28
SPD 20
Greens 19.5
AfD 12
FDP 7.5
Linke 6.5
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7601226/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooter-trump-antisemitic/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/us/pentagon-ricin-utah.html
Comment 2
1: it's odd how this has gained less traction than the bombs to the Dems;
2: the US postal service appear to be very good and fast at helping track who sent mail.
Edit: or maybe the USPS doesn't have to be good; allegedly some of the letters had his return address!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ricin-charges-trump-1.4850715
CDU 27.4
SPD 19,8
Green 19,8
AfD 12,8
FDP 7.2
Linke 6.6
Both CDU and SPD have lost 10.9% each of the votes
“Voting for these people [Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz], voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage. I’m not saying I endorse everything about Trump, in fact I haven’t formally endorsed him. But I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do.”
— David Duke, on his radio program, Feb. 25, 2016
Really.
It's about fishing, obviously.
I suspect it's an urban myth, but what a superb example it would be of karma if true.
At the moment Merkel considers the AfD beyond the pale but if a more conservative CDU/CSU leader replaces her as Chancellor before the next election I wonder if they will be so quick to rule out any AfD deals and even if they still do so will any regional CDU/CSU premier break ranks eventually?
If it was just beans, without any treatment, then he's probably going to go away for a long time for something relatively harmless. But perhaps rightly so ...
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/david-duke-trump-charlottesville_us_5991d6bae4b08a2472764798
There's a intriguing thought in Charles Moore's latest Spectator notes about why May appears determined to keep the UK in the customs union. "It would be very interesting to know if she has given some private undertakings to the British motor industry."
I was going to say he was only behind Perry for crapness, but then I started remembering the others. Is weakness in shallowness the opposite of strength in depth?
The guy was one of those sent a pipe bomb last week iirc.
Republicans should hang their heads in shame that they have let this divisive lunatic near the Whitehouse.
Or is the GOP completely devoid of presidential material?
In that case in the 1970s, a man had made a series of bombs. He had left one unaddressed on the kitchen table as he did something else, and his wife opened it, severely injuring her.
The latest attempted bombing was by the same man, decades later.
Maybe wait and see?
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1056602848878833664
No bigger betting moment in recent history. I am ashamed that I only laid a portion of my bankroll on that ludicrous mis-price rather than the whole ducking lot.
"After the hearing, detectives disclosed that Dyer, who will be sentenced next month, was caught when a blackmail letter giving details of his bombing campaign was left in a newsagent's photocopier.
His deadlines were unusable because he muddled his dates up, and during the campaign investigators discovered that three bombs in a sorting office had not reached their destinations because too few stamps had been put on them."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1329223/Bungling-letter-bomber-put-on-too-few-stamps.html
Hilary was seen as a weak candidate, indeed I thought there was no way the GOP could lose with her as the candidate - right up until it was clear that Trump was going to be the nominee. At that point I thought there was no way the Dems could lose.
I was wrong.
They'd be embarrassed to play with all that protection.
I suppose you could say American football is a lot like rugby league with their big girl's blouse fifth/sixth tackle rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malik_Hooker
In which case, with the sum above being 93.6%, close to 47% plus non aggression might do the job and Full Jamaica may not be needed. In order of possibility, the above could, in theory, work:
CDU / Green with SPD assent
CDU / SPD with Green assent
SPD / Green / Linke with CDU assent
None without problems, but all get round the FDP not being natural bedfellows with the centre left parties and the AfD not being potential bedfellows for anyone.
American Football involves head on tackling in a way that is quite dangerous without padding. It is not a game for softies.
So a big step down from previous Ricin letter campaigns.
http://www.ard.de/home/ard/ARD_Startseite/21920/index.html
The Hesse results close to the final polls but not quite the 28-20-20 split. AfD perhaps marginally stronger than the final polls but it's all fractions. The CDU-Green Coalition can continue with a tiny majority or we could have a CDU-SPD coalition. There don't seem to be many other options on the table - SDP/Green/FDP might work but I can't see it.