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Romney, Obama, Rasmussen

JoeTheJuggler said:
I'm sure you realize it, but I just wanted to point out that prediction markets don't say how far ahead one candidate is. It's strictly a measure of market confidence that Obama will win by any margin at all, and not a measure of the margin. (Technically it's not even that. It's about market confidence that the stock value will go up or down as we near the election. They're very closely related ideas, though.)

This is just a quibble over the wording "Obama is still up by about 15%".

Shares in the proposition Obama will be re-elected are currently valued at about 15% higher than are shares in the proposition that Romney (or rather the Republican candidate) will be elected.
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It's an interesting metric because once money is introduced to the game perceptions change. And as you note, polling is about who you will vote for, stocks are about who will likely win. A voter might plan on voting for one candidate but expect another to win.
 
RandFan said:
It's an interesting metric because once money is introduced to the game perceptions change. And as you note, polling is about who you will vote for, stocks are about who will likely win. A voter might plan on voting for one candidate but expect another to win.
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And a prediction market could reach virtual certainty that a candidate will win, but it still doesn't say anything about the margin of victory, unlike polls of likely voters.

Prediction markets seem to have a good history of getting the outcome right, but the percentage corresponds to something like a degree of confidence and not how big the victory will be. (OTOH, in the papers I read, they evaluated the accuracy of prediction markets right at election time.)
 
RandFan said:
It's an interesting metric because once money is introduced to the game perceptions change. And as you note, polling is about who you will vote for, stocks are about who will likely win. A voter might plan on voting for one candidate but expect another to win.
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Yup. It's one thing to say who you would like to win... it's a very different thing to lay money on it.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
And a prediction market could reach virtual certainty that a candidate will win, but it still doesn't say anything about the margin of victory, unlike polls of likely voters.

Prediction markets seem to have a good history of getting the outcome right, but the percentage corresponds to something like a degree of confidence and not how big the victory will be. (OTOH, in the papers I read, they evaluated the accuracy of prediction markets right at election time.)
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Correct, which is why I always reference the WTA (Winner Take All) numbers from prediction markets. Right now, the markets are betting pretty big that President Obama will win, whether it is by 1 Electoral College vote or 100.
 
Wow... over at IEM the WTA gap between President Obama and Romney has widened to almost 20%, even after the less-than-pleasant jobs report last week. Meanwhile, the gap over at Intrade still stands at around a bit over 15%.
 
Wow, things are getting worse for Romney at both IEM and Intrade...

IEM
Obama WTA 59.5%
Romney WTA 41.5%

Meanwhile, at Intrade
Obama 59.5%
Romney 38.7%

So now President Obama has opened up a lead of roughly 20% in the prediction markets. That's up from about 5% just a couple of weeks ago.

Rough going ahead for Romney.
 
MattusMaximus said:
Wow, things are getting worse for Romney at both IEM and Intrade...

IEM
Obama WTA 59.5%
Romney WTA 41.5%

Meanwhile, at Intrade
Obama 59.5%
Romney 38.7%

So now President Obama has opened up a lead of roughly 20% in the prediction markets. That's up from about 5% just a couple of weeks ago.

Rough going ahead for Romney.
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Meanwhile, at Rasmussen (you know, what the thread is about): Tracking Poll for Friday shows President Obama attracting 47% of the vote, while Mitt Romney earns 46%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) more are undecided.
 
applecorped said:
Meanwhile, at Rasmussen (you know, what the thread is about): Tracking Poll for Friday shows President Obama attracting 47% of the vote, while Mitt Romney earns 46%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) more are undecided.
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Yeah, keep focusing on the one pollster that you prefer, rather than looking at the aggregation of all the polls and also watching the prediction markets. I'm sure denying reality will work out well for you in November.
 
applecorped said:
Meanwhile, at Rasmussen (you know, what the thread is about): Tracking Poll for Friday shows President Obama attracting 47% of the vote, while Mitt Romney earns 46%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) more are undecided.
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So, what? You're only interested in discussing one source of data and only when it looks plausible for Romney?

Well, golly! You're right! If we ignore other, more historically accurate, polling sources, it looks like Obama sure is in a lot of trouble!

(Am I sticking to the thread topic well enough? Should I also throw a dig in there against anyone who suggests that Obama has chance is off topic? Or do you have that covered, do you think?)



ETA: Incidently, In the numbers you give, Romney appears to actually be down some compared to the last data set Ben posted from Rasmussen. Huh.
 
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Upchurch said:
So, what? You're only interested in discussing one source of data and only when it looks plausible for Romney?

Well, golly! You're right! If we ignore other, more historically accurate, polling sources, it looks like Obama sure is in a lot of trouble!

(Am I sticking to the thread topic well enough? Should I also throw a dig in there against anyone who suggests that Obama has chance is off topic? Or do you have that covered, do you think?)



ETA: Incidently, In the numbers you give, Romney appears to actually be down some compared to the last data set Ben posted from Rasmussen. Huh.
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Feel free to start a thread on other data sources. Golly. Huh.
 
applecorped said:
Feel free to start a thread on other data sources. Golly. Huh.
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This thread'll do fine.

picture.php
 
Upchurch said:
Why?
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So you can stay on topic.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows Mitt Romney attracting 46% of the vote, while President Obama earns support from 44%. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) more are undecided.
 
applecorped said:
So you can stay on topic.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows Mitt Romney attracting 46% of the vote, while President Obama earns support from 44%. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) more are undecided.
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Well, I guess that about wraps it up. Anything else would be off topic.

/thread
 
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