New Tradesports rankings

[Mr. Morden]

Obama has now broken the 20% mark for (I think) the first time ever.  On the GOP side, there had been a Giuliani bounce (hurting both McCain and Romney) right after he announced his exploratory committee, but now it looks like McCain, Romney, and Giuliani are all back to about where they were before that happened (with McCain again, barely, above 50%).  Gingrich continues his slow rise (he's now close to his all time high), and Rice continues her slow fall (I think she may now be at an all time low).

[Mr. Morden]

all others are under 1.0

Yeah, but that's because not all of the potential candidates are listed on winning the general election.  I assume that Huckabee would be over 1.0 if he was listed, given that his odds of winning the GOP nomination are now given as 9.1%.  He would have to be a pretty pathetic general election candidate to have a 9% chance at the nomination, but only a 1% chance of going all the way.

[Mr. Morden]

Edwards also seems to be close to an all time high.  He's been slowly gaining of late.  Huckabee is slowly fading after his peak of a few weeks ago.

[Mr. Morden]

Obama is now at 19.5, and Edwards has moved up to 19.0.  At this rate, Edwards will soon surpass Obama.

Of course, part of what's holding Obama back is that there's still doubt in some quarters about whether he's actually going to run.  If Obama announced today that he was running, he would probably see an immediate uptick to at least 25.0 or so.

[Mr. Morden]

I expected more of a bounce for Obama now that he's jumped in the race....but he's barely ahead of where he was a month ago, back when quite a few pundits seemed unsure of whether he'd actually get in.  I guess more people have been convinced that he'd run all along.....or else those that were unsure don't think much of his chances at the nomination anyway.

[Mr. Morden]

Clinton and McCain are at or near their lowest points since the election two months ago.  Obama is (I think) at an all time high (but still rated as only half as likely to win the nomination as Clinton).  Romney is near his all time high, but still well behind McCain.  Edwards is kind of close to his all time high, but has backslid a bit since Obama's announcement.

[Mr. Morden]

Obama has now reached a new all time high of 23.8.  His price is finally more than half that of Clinton's.

[Mr. Morden]

I'm really surprised that Hillary seems to have gotten a bigger bounce (and the associated drop for her rivals) out of her announcement than Obama did.  Obama is now exactly where he was about a month ago on Tradesports.  But wasn't the CW at that point that there was still some doubt as to whether Obama would run, whereas Clinton was pretty much a sure thing?  So then why hasn't Obama's decision to run given him a bigger boost?

[Mr. Morden]

So then why hasn't Obama's decision to run given him a bigger boost?

Hillary still has tons of name recognition over Obama.

But that's been the case forever.  I'm simply asking why it is that Obama hasn't gained more ground since the timeframe when people were still uncertain about whether he'd actually run.  When the CW goes from, say, 75% probability that Obama will run to 100% probability that Obama will run, then there should be a corresponding boost in the probability that Obama will win the nomination (unless people are simultaneously becoming more skeptical of Obama's chances of winning, should he run).

Anyway, I had thought that, back in early-mid December, there was still some uncertainty as to whether Obama would run, whereas nearly everyone was convinced that Clinton would run.  But I guess I may have been wrong on that score.

[Mr. Morden]

Why does Gravel get 1.0? I don't think he's being officially recognized by the party...

What do you mean by "officially recognized by the party"?

[Mr. Morden]

Why does Gravel get 1.0? I don't think he's being officially recognized by the party...

What do you mean by "officially recognized by the party"?

Was LaRouche every included in any primary debates?

No, but Gravel isn't insane like LaRouche is.  Even Morry Taylor made it into the '96 GOP debates, so I would imagine that Gravel can get into the '08 debates if he wants to.  You do have a point though in that the media almost never mentions Gravel when it lists '08 candidates.  But that's the media's fault, not the Democratic Party's.

Oh, and Gravel has been included in numerous '08 polls, which is something that was never done for LaRouche, AFAIK.

[Mr. Morden]

The two frontrunners seem to be going in opposite directions on Tradesports, and I think Tradesports is wrong on both counts.  McCain is experiencing a Tradesports slump (now below 40 for the first time in ages), but I think McCain is actually in a very strong position to win the GOP nomination.  Yes, he's got problems, but you can't beat somebody with nobody, and I'm becoming less and less impressed by McCain's rivals by the day.  Sure, McCain still has some problems with the base, but you can say the same for every single one of his rivals, save Tancredo (who I do not believe can win).  McCain is incredibly lucky that folks like Allen and Frist self-destructed so thoroughly, and that Owens' messy divorce in '05 led to him sitting out '08 as well.

And while McCain's ultra-hawkish position on Iraq may hurt him in the general election, I'm yet to be convinced that it will hurt him much in a GOP primary.  And in fact, it may help him with the base, in that, by seeing him take such a strongly conservative position on the most important issue of the day, the base may become convinced that the can't possibly be quite the squishy moderate that they thought he was.

On the flip side, Hillary Clinton seems to have recovered a bit from her December slide on Tradesports, but I think Tradesports is wrong there as well.  To me, she looks more vulnerable than ever.  The only places in the country where you already have a large number of people paying attention to the campaign are Iowa and New Hampshire.  And we now have multiple polls out of both states that indicate that Edwards and Obama are tied or ahead of Clinton in both states.  So how can she still have such a huge lead on Tradesports?  It doesn't make much sense.

[Mr. Morden]

With his filing of candidacy, Giuliani has now shot up to 20.0, which is close to highest ever from 2005-7.

[Mr. Morden]

That's the lowest for McCain in many months.  *Too* low, in my opinion.  I definitely think he has a better than 37% chance of winning the nomination.  Yes, he has his vulnerabilities, but that's not exactly a first rate crop of candidates he's running against!

[Mr. Morden]

If we say that the Big 3 of Romney, Rudy, and McCain are the only Republicans with a chance at the nomination, then they should each have around 33%.  If anything McCain's is too high, and I'm still puzzled as to why most of the forum considers McCain to be a shoe-in for the nomination.

I don't think he's a shoe in.  I just think he's the frontrunner...a better chance at the nomination than anyone else.  Better than 37% I think.  I don't understand why you think Giuliani, McCain, and Romney all have to have exactly the same probability of winning.  Just because they're the three leading candidates doesn't mean their chances at the nomination are absolutely identical.

[Mr. Morden]

Romney is also close to his record high.  He's been gradually moving up the last couple of months.  Though, yeah, not nearly as fast as Giuliani has been the last couple weeks.

[Mr. Morden]

Edwards is down pretty significantly from where he was in early January.

[Mr. Morden]

Giuliani has also surpassed McCain on the odds to go all the way and win the general election as well as the primary.  Intrade odds to go all the way and win the general election:

Clinton 28.0
Giuliani 17.5
McCain 17.0
Obama 13.5
Romney 9.0
Edwards 7.9

Divide those #s by the odds to win the nomination, and you find that each of those candidates would have a better than 50% chance in the general election (except Romney, who's at exactly 50%).  I guess this works out if you think that they would all absolutely destroy any of the non-top 3 from the other party.  Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense.

[Mr. Morden]

Richardson has now jumped up all the way to 8.0.  What's up with that?

[Mr. Morden]

Gore will collapse tonight after he fails to announce at the Oscars. (Alternatively, he could overtake Obama if he announces, but I find that highly unlikely.)

So much for that.  There was about a ~25-30% drop in the share price for Gore last night after his non-announcement, but it's now bounced back to about where it was 24 hours ago.

[Mr. Morden]

It is rather incredible that Edwards is just barely ahead of Gore.  If Edwards continues his slide of the last two months, it won't be long before Gore passes him.

[Mr. Morden]

Tradesports odds to win the GOP nomination---trendline since January 1st of this year:



The x-axis is the day number since the first of the year.  Y-axis is the Tradesports odds of winning the GOP nomination.  Purple is McCain.  Yellow is Giuliani.  Light blue is Romney.  Giuliani and McCain lines don't cross yet, because Giuliani's trend isn't well fit by a straight line.  If the McCain and Romney trends were to continue indefinitely, Romney would pass McCain for 2nd place in about 6 weeks or so....but I don't expect these trends to continue indefinitely.

[Mr. Morden]

Tradesports odds to win the Democratic nomination---since January 1st:



The x-axis is the day number since the first of the year.  Y-axis is the Tradesports odds of winning the Democratic nomination.  Purple is Clinton.  Yellow is Obama.  Didn't plot the trendlines this time, as they're pretty much flat.  It's weird that Clinton and Obama seem to go up and down at the same time.

[Mr. Morden]

Gore has now surpassed Edwards.  He's at 12.0 while Edwards is at 10.7.

[Mr. Morden]

Oops, that didn't last long.  Edwards now ahead of Gore again.  Also, as I type this, the gap between Clinton and Obama has narrowed to 26.4, which is narrowest gap between them in over a month.