First, this blog is non-partisan for a variety of
reasons. Second, this is not a partisan post;
I just want to bring to light observations on the Presidential race.
One of my favorite “news” sites is Drudge Report mainly
because it’s totally headline driven, contains some very good pop culture
links, and funny pictures. I also
frequent the NYT. What appears clear to
me is that in national polls Obama and Romney seem tied.
Where it gets interesting is the Intrade betting markets, where Obama
is more heavily favored with Romney making ground. Intrade problems aside, why the
disconnect? The election isn’t decided
by the popular vote but by the Electoral College.
Econbrowser
did a nice job of laying this out drawing on Real Clear Politics and Intrade
numbers. I again liked to look at the
Intrade map, which outlines Electoral College bets on each state. It’s a nice to play with the math and see the
different outcomes.
The one conclusion I came to, and as Econbrowser pointed
out, Ohio is really the only state that matters. I took it one step further and put together a
chart of the Obama values (higher = more likely to win) since September 1, when
contract volume picked up:
The correlation is almost 1, which advances the theory “as
Ohio goes, the election goes”, or whatever it is they say.
