Predicting Super Tuesday: GOP

The following are my predictions for the Republican primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday. These are probabilistic predictions, not projections of the vote shares.

Alabama – Huckabee 55% McCain 35% Romney 10%
Arizona – McCain 95% Romney 5%
California – McCain 70% Romney 30%
Colorado – Romney 95% McCain 5%
Connecticut – McCain 90% Romney 10%
Georgia – Huckabee 70% McCain 15% Romney 15%
Illinois – McCain 70% Romney 30%
Massachusetts– Romney 95% McCain 5%
Missouri– Huckabee 45% McCain 30% Romney 25%
New Jersey – McCain 85% Romney 15%
New York – McCain 95% Romney 5%
Oklahoma – McCain 60% Huckabee 30% Romney 10%
Tennessee – Huckabee 60% Romney 30% McCain 20%

So the states to watch are:

Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Illinois, California, Georgia

Round-up of the British Betting Markets

TPT turns its attention back to the United Kingdom

 

 Given that an ovewhelming proportion this web-log’s coverage has been on the American Presidential elections, I thought that it was only fair that I spent some time looking at the British betting markets. The following are my notes on the UK markets:

London Mayoralty – I think Mayor Ken Livingstone will scrape through against Boris Johnson. However, his price of 1.64 on Betfair (or 60.9 in Intrade terms) doesn’t leave much room for value. If you pushed me I’d say he has a 65% chance of winning (1.53) but I really wouldn’t bet the house on it.

Next Election – Going to stick with my prediction that there is a value in an election this year. The polls seem to have bottomed out for Labour and there is plenty of room for them to catch-up. At 26 for an election before the end of June and 26 for an election from July to the end of the year, I would say that this is one the best value bets on offer.

Seats Spread betting – There’s a lot of value in betting against the Liberal Democrats (47-51) on Spreadfair.

Some thoughts on Florida

1. McCain is now 90% likely to win the nomination. With Giuliani out and Huckabee fatally wounded he should have enough momentum to overcome Romney.

2. Romney’s election night speech sounded very much like a concession speech, thanking his staff from taking ‘me from nowhere to the first tier’. Expect the 11th commandment to come into force in tonight’s debate. I can even see Romney pulling out and/or pulling his campaign ads so as to prevent Huckabee from playing a Kingmaker role. After all, Romeny’s warchest is not limitless.

3. Much of the Republican blogosphere is coming around to a McCain nomination.

4. Despite his denials, Lieberman must remain the odds on favourite to be on the bottom of the GOP ticket. The fact that he will be attending the GOP convention says it all.

5. Hillary’s victory, on such a massive turnout, must strengthen her hand.

Is the market overreacting?

Is McCain nearly 80% likely to win tonight?

Unfortunately no. More like 60-65%. Given that the probability of McCain winning the nomination is still in the early 60s, I’d advise you to sell contracts on McCain winning Florida and buy contracts on McCain winning the nomination.

Final DEMOCRAT projection: Clinton leads by over 25%

If the polls are correct, Senator Clinton will be smiling

My final projections for the Democrat side are: Hillary Clinton 52.62 Barack Obama 26.96 and John Edwards 12.43. Only 7.99% of voters are undecided. Even though no delegates are at stake such a Hillary Clinton landslide cannot be ignored. At the very least, it will wipe away some of the stain of South Carolina.

Final Projection: McCain leads by 0.30%

The Florida contest is simply too close to call

 

Taking all the published polls together, my final projections are: John McCain 32.13, Mitt Romney 31.83, Rudolph Giuliani 13.24, Mike Huckabee 12.58 and Ron Paul 3.43. The election is truly too close to call and don’t let the betting markets, or anyone else tell you otherwise. Remember that the exit polls were confortably predicting a Huckabee victory in South Carolina (and lets not pass over the New Hampshire debacle). 6.73% of voters are still undecided.

Romney leads by 1.54%

Good news for Romney supporters and Democrat hacks

 

Taking all the published polls together, my current projections are: Mitt Romney 30.82, John McCain 29.28, Rudolph Giuliani 14.45, Mike Huckabee 12.52 and Ron Paul 4.02. It’s pretty obvious that tomorrow’s contest will be decided by the tactical voting decisions of Huckabee and Giuliani supporters. In any case Giuliani will not see February 5th.

McCain beats Obama and Clinton while Romney gets crushed

Hard evidence that John McCain is more electable than Mitt Romney

Adding together the six polls conducted this month that match up John McCain with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (Hart and McInturff, LA Times/Bloomberg, Gallup, Financial Dynamics, Zogby and Opinion Research) and weighting them by their sample size, produces the following results:

John McCain 47.50 Hillary Clinton 45.84 (5,397 voters, MOE 1.36%)
John McCain 45.86 Barack Obama 44.19 (5,397 voters, MOE 1.36%)

against:

Doing the same for the five polls that match up Mitt Romney with Clinton and Obama (Hart and McInturff, LA Times/Bloomberg, Financial Dynamics, Zogby and Opinion Research) produces:

Mitt Romney 37.77 Hillary Clinton 51.76 (3,799 voters, MOE 1.62%)
Mitt Romney 34.87 Barack Obama 53.32 (3,799 voters, MOE 1.62%)

The results pretty much speak for themselves.

Some new head-to-heads

Some preliminary predictions about likely Presidential match-ups.

Given that the Republican contest is essentially between McCain and Romney, with the Democratic contest down to Clinton and Obama it is much easier to construct head-to-heads. Note, these head-to-heads assume that neither Michael Bloomber, nor another serious third party candidate enters the contest.

Clinton/McCain – A pretty straightforward win for the Arizona senator provided he selects a strong running mate and doesn’t listen to the advice of those who have a vested interest in his failure. He’ll also need to move back to the centre and start finding the populist touch that at one point put him ahead of Al Gore in a poll of a hypothetical three way match-up with Bush. Hillary Clinton will be further handicapped by her campaign, which will mean that she will have to spend time and money bringing the African-American vote back into her column. Prediction: John McCain has a 65% probability of winning.

Obama/McCain – The conventional wisdom is that Obama will be a strong candidate. In this case the conventional wisdom is extremely suspect. Obama is an inexperienced candidate with a large number of personal skeletons in his closet. Ultimately, McCain will win and he will win big. McCain just needs to avoid complacency and prevent people like Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter sabotaging his campaign by making racist comments. Prediction: John McCain has a 85% probability of winning.

Clinton/Romney – Like the last two contests this one won’t be particularly close. However, this time it will be Hillary on the right end of a landslide. Economic worries, combined with Mitt Romney’s flip-flops, will lead to anemic Republican support and a recapturing of the South. Many people in the Republican party, especially those in the ‘Hillary Clinton industry’ might be able to accept a Clinton victory, but not at the cost of several Senate seats. Prediction: McCain has a 85% probability of winning.

Obama/Romney – This will be the election with the two weakest candidates. On the one hand you have someone who is clearly not up to the job of being President. On the other hand you have someone who is the epitome of pandering and the politics that has dominated the White House for the last eight years, without the benefit of a consistent support for the one thing that George Bush has got right. I’m going to predict a small Obama victory, although Romney could pull it off. God help America and God help the world! Prediction: Obama has a 55% probability of winning.

What do you think? Post your views belows.

Romney leads by 2.02%

Good news for ‘Slick Willard’

Including all of today’s polls, I’ve come up with the following projections: Mitt Romney 30.28, John McCain 28.26, Rudolph Giuliani 15.06, Mike Huckabee 13.44 and Ron Paul 2.76. In contrast to my earlier predictions, Giuliani’s support seems to be declining at a lower rate than that of Huckabee, which is bad news for McCain.

A roundup of the betting markets

TPT looks at the betting markets

The political betting markets in the US have reached the peak of their activity. Since Giuliani is fading into the Florida sunset, and his supporters will inevitably flock to John McCain (while Huckabee’s supporters will stick with the preacher), I will predict that even if John McCain doesn’t win the Florida primary, he will eventually emerge as the nominee (55.1-55.8). My prediction is that McCain has a 70% chance, Romney 15%, Huckabee 10% and Giuliani has a nominal 5% chance. The main question is whether McCain will accumalate enough delegates to enable him to have a relatively free choice of running mate (which would be Lieberman). It is quite possible that he will be forced to choose Huckabee (21.5-22) if he falls short.

Similarly, even though both the Clintons did Hillary’s campaign no favours with the tone of the campaign in South Carolina, I believe that betting on Hillary Clinton at (62.7-64) is still good value. I would give the chances of a Clinton victory at 70%. After all, to give a shortened version of what I have said earlier, Barack Obama is simply too inexperienced for high office. However, if Obama does win I believe that he will choose either Jim Webb (3-4.4), to reinforce his roots with the South, or Michael Bloomberg to grab headlines, cash and liberal Republicans. If Hillary wins she might be forced to pick Obama (20-22.5) or someone like Ken Salazar.

My tips are McCain and Clinton for their respective party’s nominations and Huckaee, Webb and both Fields for the the second sport on the ticket.

Some thoughts on last night

TPT’s thoughts on South Carolina.

1. The result was obviously a great one for Obama. However, it doesn’t alter the essential dynamic of the contest, which is a Clinton victory.

2. However, it does mean that Hillary Clinton cannot be assured of the African-American vote. This will mean that she might be forced to put Barack Obama on the ticket after all.

3. Edwards is pretty much dead. Given that he didn’t in the end come close to challenging Hillary for second place and he only manage to carry the county of his birth, his value as anything more than a spolier is limited.

4. Edwards faces a paradox. Because his voters will mostly go to Hillary, he helps Obama (and therefore his vice-presidential chances) by staying in the contest. However, if he stays in the contest it will become obvious that he has a ceiling of 10-15% support, which will make him useless as a running mate.

5. Indeed, if Obama manages to pull it off, he will probably select someone like James Webb, who can help him carry the South, or Michael Bloomberg. Edwards would be a stupid choice for the reasons above.

6. The story on the Republican side is Crist’s endorsement of John McCain in Florida. I don’t like to tempt fate but this must be the end for Giuliani.

McCain leads by 2.62%

Giuliani and Huckabee fall further behind the two frontrunners as their supporters move to the undecided column

Adding the Survey USA polls to the collection my projections are as follows: John McCain 28.01, Mitt Romney 25.39, Rudolph Giuliani 15.58, Mike Huckabee 12.59 and Ron Paul 5.91. Giuliani’s figures have been declining from around ever since the South Carolina primary, but Huckabee’s numbers had previously been solid, with the blip mainly the result of a Zogby poll that put him at 10%.

Do you agree with this analysis? Leave your comments here.

McCain leads by 0.51% in Florida

Momentum seems to be going John McCain’s way.

Adding the Survey USA polls to the collection my projections are as follows: John McCain 27.65, Mitt Romney 27.14, Rudolph Giuliani 18.26, Mike Huckabee 14.37 and Ron Paul 5.69. McCain seems to be putting quite a lot of distance between himself and Giuliani, and if this continues we could very well see Giuliani’s vote drifting to the Senator from Arizona, as Giuliani’s supporters vote tactically against Romney. Either way Giuliani seems on the way out.

Do you agree with this analysis? Leave your comments here.

Romney leads by 1.92% in Florida

Romney is slightly ahead of McCain with Giuliani in third place.

My current projection is: Mitt Romney 25.71 John McCain 23.79 Rudolph Giuliani 18.82 Mike Huckabee 15.31 and Ron Paul 4.04. It seems that most of Thompson’s voters have gone over to Romney. McCain really needs to get in Romney’s face and find some way of winning the economic argument, possibly by taking the radical step of opposing both the tax cuts and the short term spending of the ‘stimulus’ package. He also need to talk about finding long term solutions to America’s problems, rather than engaging in a return to the Keynesian nightmare of the late 1960s and 70s.