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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Ladbrokes are offering 66/1 on a 269 electoral college tie, sh
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Ladbrokes are offering 66/1 on a 269 electoral college tie, should I take this bet?
Ladbrokes are offering 66/1 on there being an electoral college tie, by comparison Paddy Power are offering 33/1, I regard the Ladbrokes politics team led by Matthew Shaddick are the shrewdest political bookies out there, so this discrepancy caught my attention.
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I wonder what Republican law makers in Congress really make of all this talk? (just hoping it will all go away and not come to pass?). There have been problematic US presidential elections in the past (either as a result of general closeness or actual problems with vote-rigging) but in the end the party hierarchies have ultimately always prioritised the protection of the appearance of the respect of American democracy over all else, even when they might have actually had right on their side. The alternative and its implications for the democratic process which infuses almost every layer of US public administration and judiciary, has always been too awful to contemplate.
But this time Trump (and potentially a lot of others) maybe just have too much to lose
Trump might have taken things to extremes but the trends that were already there.
The near symmetry of the bands and prices does make me wonder if Ladbrokes has made a rick somewhere but probably the overround (or margin) protects them from that. Perhaps the probability of a landslide should be considered by those in search of value, though perhaps the spread firms might be a more natural place to look. But I am too busy to "do my own research".
And Trump hasn’t done it yet.
https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president
It appears that some countries in Europe are moving towards cutting quarantine limits, apparently primarily on the grounds of producing increasing levels of compliance and maintaining a functioning society. It doesn’t seem obvious that there’s much scientific evidence to justify this (ie. sufficiently reduced risk post 7 days, not necessarily that there will be greater public buy in/compliance)
Posted without further comment.
For all that comparisons are made between these two I find it interesting that there is a key wedge issue that they are on the opposite sides of and, possibly, their current political base.
Namely response to COVID and implementation of authoritarian measures in response to it.
Trump is very anti, Johnson is not. Trump’s base is very anti, Johnson’s as far as we can tell from polling I think (? - unless contradicted) is not. But there’s an interesting additional dynamic in that there is still a vociferous anti lockdown etc element on the right of the Tory Party, aligned with the likes of Nigel Farage. What’s not clear is if these elements are speaking largely for themselves, or whether they are representing a constituency aligned with Leave/pro Brexit voters.
There’s no doubt a largely unrepresented anti mask/lockdown etc constituency in the country at the moment. But are the likes of Farage actually well placed to exploit them, or do they come from other areas of the pro/anti immigration, pro/anti Brexit spectrum?
The conventional shortest path is to hold MN(10) and flip WI (10), MI(16), PA(20) which gets Biden 278. Miss WI or lose MN and that's 268, which is one short of a tie.
One way to fix that is to add AZ(11) and lose either MN+WI or PA. This is fairly plausible: A good national vote share, combined with a slightly greater under-performance in the mid-West than current polling, just enough to lose PA.
The other way to do it is to lose MN or WI but grab the Nebraska 2nd Congressional District (Omaha and suburbs). Losing WI looks quite plausible, what with its supreme court doing shady things. Obama won the district in 2008, Trump only won it by 2%, and the last two congressional races (2016 and 2018) were GOP holds but within 2%.
Shops, bars and pubs are open. Religious services and sports are going ahead. Workplaces, schools and universities are all open.
Yes, we have rules on social distancing, masks and the rule of six, but that is hardly lockdown. Indeed, such lesser public health measures are the alternative to lockdown.
So how can anyone be anti-lockdown, when we haven't got it?
Because there could still be faithless electors even in that scenario.
I suppose maybe a better way of thinking of it would be the extent to which individuals should be able to take their own choices, and take their own risks on behalf of themselves and others vs being mandated by the state to do so for their own and the general good. (of course in America it often goes a lot further where people often argue that individuals taking personal precautions (such as wearing masks) actually marks them out as “cowards” and impinges on their own liberties)
Edit - incidentally the person who tried to hold things up over hanging chads was Gore, not Bush.
Then it becomes very interesting indeed. (Another McDonalds, Donald?)
The play book envisaged (and the basis for comparison) is that Trump gets counting delayed, and then tries to convince that the votes actually counted form the basis for a certification in his favour. Or alternatively, if he’s behind, that the votes don’t get certified and or the members of the electoral college are nominated by the state legislatures instead, influenced by the political balance of said legislatures rather than on the basis of votes cast.
The problem is that as soon as that dissident mixes with other people he (and it usually is a male of a certain age) impinges on other peoples right to mix, to shop, to ride public transport etc.
So I do not think it reasonable for example to have a non mask wearer, refusing to socially distance from other patients in the outpatients waiting area or consultation room.
I am not overly paranoid about the bug, having worked in a Covid rich environment for 6 months now, in a hospital and city with significant ongoing disease risk. Even so, I do carefully evaluate places. I will not go to situations where the absence of enforcement puts me at risk.
Betting PostGood morning, everyone.
F1: backed there to be under 16.5 classified finishers at 2.25 (2.3 with boost):
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2020/09/tuscany-pre-race-2020.html
But are such decisions taken by the old Senate or the new one?
Must admit I thought about going to watch the local (non-league) football team yesterday, but decided against it.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/13/roger-stone-to-donald-trump-bring-in-martial-law-if-you-lose-election
Bush petitioned to refuse this and requested the result be certified at once. The Supreme Court ultimately agreed.
That’s not exactly ‘Bush attempting to suspend or delay the counting of votes.’ If Gore hadn’t contested, there would have been no delays.
The irony is of course that later indications suggested that there had been a miscount and if the SC had allowed a recount Gore might have won.
Will never happen of course, but can you imagine the look on Trump’s face if he came third in a Presidential election?
But anyway, all this is a bit at a tangent to my original question which was focussing on the talk of refusing to accept the electoral outcome, outside of normal electoral administration and judicial processes.
The mistake Gore made - and it was a dumb mistake, but then he is quite dumb - was not to say that this called the whole Florida result into question and there needed to be a state wide recount of all ballots by hand. Instead he went for just three counties which were strongly Democratic so it came across as naked partisan mud slinging.
It also tells me that the American electoral system is designed by people who are even denser than Amanda Spielman minus Dominic Cummings.
Could explain why we're seeing a huge rise in cases but not a very big rise in hospitalisations. If it's true then the government should have tougher mask rules and more scenarios where they should be worn.
Given recent events where he rather unwisely publicly called them ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’ this seems a bold assumption.
Interesting to see last night the death penalty popping up. New examination of this subject is a logical consequence of Brexit, not that it’s one most people will particularly relish.
Most in the UK have grown up without thinking too hard about the issue, because EU membership meant debate of its reinstatement was closed. With the door now open to abrogating parts of the ECHR, that’s now changed.
For most of the young, it’s a simple truism that’s the death penalty is wrong. I’ve lived in countries where it’s both a profoundly toxic idea and others where it’s not only practiced but very enthusiastically supported by pretty much all sections of society, including the well travelled, educated affluent young, who on most other issues fit nicely into #generationwoke. When you adjust the focus of your lens, it’s not as straightforward a debate as most of people think.
To Mr Horse, if you wish to reside only in countries that do not have the death penalty on the statute book, you are pretty much limiting yourself to Latin America, CANZUK, the EEA and small pockets of Asia and Africa (e.g. Korea, S Africa). Lots of very pleasant and prosperous places to live in that group of course.
But you’re ruling out 4 of the 5 most populous democracies of the US, Japan, India, Indonesia. The city states of Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong. Good portions of postcard destinations in the Caribbean and most of SE Asia. Much of Africa. And pretty much all of the Muslim world. Then throw in the places with unofficial death penalties, via extra judicial state killings (Russia and others). And of course China. By population count, countries that explicitly ban the death penalty are a pretty fringe group, I have summed it up but can you get much past 1bn people in the anti column?
I wouldn’t like to call now where UK public sentiment will sit in 10-15 years, especially given the changing age and religious demographics. Ask people about the principles of the policy and they tend to have little interest. Ask them how many thought it good that Bin Laden or the Beatles Jihadis were executed and it’s hard to find a dissenter. “Oh but that’s different”. Where the argument will play out over time is in the middle. Child killers, domestic terrorists etc...
There are parallels to Brexit, which seemed like a really fringe issue that all the parties could safely ignore. Until they couldn’t...
But Farage is a Trumpist on this. Many of the dissenting voices on the Tory benches are similar (although not to the same extent perhaps). So does he have a constituency out there on this issue and is it aligned in areas that can do the Tories damage? Quite possibly not. These people are currently unrepresented. But is there actually anyone who could credibly represent them? If I had to speculate it might be the more traditional Tory attracting areas in the Midlands, rather than the new areas of the North. The small businesses and self employed, rather than the working class if you like.
Why is the government so against a border in the Irish Sea. This was the consequence of the withdrawal agreement they signed and passed through parliament last year. I'd have more respect for them if they admitted their mistake rather than accusing the EU of trying to harm the UK.
Should they return to Labour, then several Tory gains look vulnerable.
Should they go to the Tories, then many more Labour seats could go blue.
Should they stay at home - then not much is likely to change.
As for Tory Remainers, they probably still haven’t been convinced by Starmer. If he is painted as an articulate and intelligent version of Corbyn, without the racism, dodgy friends, love of terrorists and mind bending arrogance, they might still cling to the Johnson party.
2) Because Johnson is so thick he didn’t understand what he’d signed and why it was a much worse deal than May’s. He genuinely seems not to have realised that there would have to be customs barriers in place.
Edit - on point one, I might add however that voters with comfortable lives and ample assets are also probably more likely to live longer than those in low paid jobs who worry every month about where to find the rent. So your point may well be valid.
People don’t care about Brexit/international law it’s all a wash. All sides as bad as each other/playing games/don’t know what to believe. Still waiting to see what happens on Jan 1st. Perhaps residual rallying around the Govt in a crisis (covid). Ongoing widespread suspicion/distrust of Labour.
It would be interesting though to track whether there has been any material rise in the number of “don’t knows” in the polling.
They seem to have built a house of cards testing system which is about to completely collapse. We've had >£15bn spent and 4 months to prepare for this second wave. It's a complete disaster.
I suspect they support the Tories for other reasons, but are a demographic that both Starmer and Davey are targeting. Davey has announced that LDs will not be campaigning to rejoin next GE, for example*. I think the Bored of Brexit vote could well be the swing voters, and we will get some sense of how big that vote is next May, with the Scottish, Welsh and English Local elections.
*https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-liberal-democrats-eu-ed-davey-europe-b404557.html
The reality these days however is that the Conservative Party under McMillan or Heath shares very little with Johnson's party except for the name.
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1304312706518994944?s=19
To take an extreme example, Jochen Rindt died because he refused to wear his seatbelt properly. He was afraid if his car caught fire, he wouldn’t be able to remove his belt in time to jump out. As a result, he only attached half of it and it garrotted him when he crashed.
And this comes from the politicians initially, and the failure to take advice from those who are capable of understanding the future pitfalls. Or appointment of bad advisors.
I can understand you wanting to make an argument over philosophy, to say I don't care if this saves lives . . . But to pretend this is about what works is a nonsense. Masks work.
Personally I think Labour has done well to reduce the Tory poll lead as much as it has in such a short space of time. Much of the credit goes to Starmer himself although Johnson's contribution mustn't be underestimated. The GE is some way off (probably) so Party leads don't matter much at the moment but if Johnson continues as he has begun the electorate may appreciate a boring but competent successor and vote for Starmer in great numbers.
That's my prediction anyway this Sunday morning, but we will have to wait for Brexit to start seriously affecting our lives before we see this come about....if indeed we ever do.
1) The evidence was less solid at that time.
2) Supplies of masks were critically short across the world and needed to be prioritised for Health care workers.
Neither of those is now the case, hence the change in advice.