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Let's get some prediction posts going about the election! I'm a political bettor and I have been making good money for over a decade at this point each cycle. I figured I'm a politics junkie (and worked in politics for a bit) and so I may as well make money from my hobby. Here are some of my predictions (and bets) I've made on the upcoming election. Here is a past post about how I think about these predictions (and bets) - do not follow the advice on Silver this election. Polls and most pollsters are indeed bad, but that doesn't mean the numbers you get from them are useless.
My Prediction is 52+ (I'll pick 53) Senate Dem Senate and 240+ (I'll pick 243) House and pick up 8 governor seats. I think the electorate will be D+10 with Trump at 39 approval which means any state or district Trump won by 10 or less will be in danger. I currently think Democrats will win OHSen (by 5), OHGov, NCSen, NCGov, GASen (by 10), GAGov, MESen, KSSen, IAGov, NHSen, MISen, AKGov, AZGov, and PA across the board at state level. I think GOP will hold off in TxSen*, TxGov, FLGov (only by a few), NESen (edit: will be close), SCSen, NHGov. I have varying levels of confidence in these with some like TXSen being close and some like OHSen not being close; none of these bets were even-odds. I'm not going to list all the specific House predictions. One thing I'm worried about is at a point near my prediction (probably represented by about 6 Senate seat swaps), the dam could break and we're looking at wipeout across all toss-ups , e.g., the TxSen* is a wishcast and I really really don't want Paxton to lose it but think he likely will.
Most of my bets were made in mid-February when I was convinced Trump was going to do his clownishly stupid Iran strikes (which I believed would quickly escalate to war) and believed this would wreck his winning political coalition. My favorite bets are the "longshot" 2, 3, or 4 to 1 and margin bets at the state and district level (edit: e.g., bet the margin on Ricketts in NESen, the under on Huckabee in AS, the under on Blackburn or over on Hetfield in TN, under in SC gov). So I bet or Dems to win Senate and Gov races in pretty much every state which wasn't in the "never going to happen" category. When I made most of these bets, everyone was telling me I was crazy and now 8 months later none of those bets are in the red. The strategy wasn't just that I thought the Trump's clownishly stupid war against Iran for Israel was going to cause the House and Senate to flip, but it's a margin play where I can take bets now and then as we get closer to the election and the races tighten in the way I think they will tighten I can sell them or keep them depending on my current beliefs.
If today shapes up the way I think it will, this will have been one of the top 3 political trainwrecks in American history. Trump has wrecked his winning coalition and destroyed the future of the GOP. Trump has betrayed and sold out pretty much anyone under the age of 50 and the RFK Jr. cohort who supported him.
Trump won in 2024 with a historical mandate and popular vote vote; he had built a broad coalition from working class whites to hispanics who voted Obama, from Gen Z and disenfranchised Millenials to Boomers, and in general brought low-prop voters back into the fold. The mission should have been to complete this realignment and cement these voters into an FDR-like coalition strong and broad enough to restructure American governance and stop America from its long-term slide and degradation.
He could have done things like redoing the census and removing illegals from the count which would allow a redistricting and disempowering of Democrat districts and states throughout the country and make the GOP the favored party for a few decades. This would have been entirely justified given the 2020 census was admitted to have substantial error by the Biden administration (you'll never guess which direction the error went). He could have delivered accountability against the Covid Hysterics, Government Zealots, and Corporate Warriors who had attacked him and his supporters for years and years.
Instead, he didn't do that. Instead, his administration quickly became the administration for Epstein, Billionaires and Israel. His second term has been an administration so riddled with clownish levels of corruption that Democrats and the Media won't even need to make them up this time.
Instead of focusing on the domestic agenda, he was stymied and shifted focus elsewhere, e.g., the state level redistricting in some states based on the 2024 Trump vote and the BS 2020 Census numbers. The problem is if the GOP is unable to convert the Trump 2024 vote into GOP votes, then the redistricting actually hurts the GOP because the votes they thought they would get in many of these counties will instead not vote or vote Democrat turning what was thought to be safe districts into play. Remember, the point of gerrymandering is to get as close to 50/50 as possible but remain a safe district for the gerrymandering party and maybe stack on or two districts entirely on top of another area to concentrate the opposition party into one district if you have to. What happens when the Trump vote in 2024 doesn't show up and instead the terrible, awful, no good generic GOP derp has rely on his own popularity because Trump's popularity is currently bad? Catastrophe. And that's why I think we're looking at a 2006-style wipeout for the GOP.
And so we get to look forward to 2028 when most swing states will be controlled by Democrat governors and we can get treated to the election "shenanigans" we saw during the 2020 election (looking at you SecofState Benson who will be Gov Benson in Michigan). Other than what I believe will be a still deeply unpopular Trump, the GOP candidate will be looking at an uphill battle against Dem Govs across these states. This will be a disaster.
As of the last time I looked, despite whatever you're seeing in the news the GOP is doing badly in early voting. The low-prop Trump voters from 2024 voted early and they haven't been seen yet at the polls. Typically voters vote the same way every time, especially low-prop voters. The likelihood a low-prop early voter will show up on election day is low. And the GOP needs historic levels of election day turnout in order to stop this from being a catastrophe.
P.S. I wrote part of this post earlier, but got busy and didn't post it so some of the timing comments are a little off. Oh well, going to post it anyway!
My prediction is a roughly even senate and a democratic majority in the House of about +5-8.
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I expect Talarico to win and Abbott to squeak by. Democrats in power will push catastrophically bad policy and a side of 'Fuck Trump'. I would expect Texas nationalists to be the big winner from this election- their policy ideas aren't really any better, but the low-IQ conspiracy theorist section of the GOP has to go somewhere, and they hate democrats too much to stay over there(to be fair, the feeling is mutual). Both of my this-term outcome predictions are weak, this is a very blue year and reps are stuck defending some smart but horrendously unpopular decisions about education and datacenters, but Texas GOP voters are very sticky.
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I've predicted that I've thought Talarico (TX) and Rogers (MI) will win even though the prediction markets think I'm wrong.
But the prediction markets make these questions sort of uninteresting.
Let's say you go with the underdog and you're wrong. I can already hear the jeering: "You thought you were smarter than the market, haha, what an idiot". And if you go with the overdog and lose, you can always just say "Huh, usually nothing ever happens. I was wrong this time but at least I'm a reliable person who doesn't get ruled by my emotions".
Bet on Rogers in a prediction market and you can 5x your money. Predict him to win in this forum and you don't get 5x the plaudits for being right. The opposite if anything.
So as a result you get lots of herding. Even on this forum, where probably a slight majority of people actually want Republicans to win, the vast majority are predicting a giant loss. Makes prediction unfun. Kudos for putting yourself out there.
Thanks for the predictions! I think the Rogers bet on those odds was good yesterday, but I haven't seen any information on it today. The Talerico bet I think will pay out which is a disaster.
I want the GOP to win despite most of them being total scumbags because Democrats are much worse. It's why I was so disappointed when I saw the Trump admin and the usual suspects moving towards war with Iran because I expected it to escalate and the result to shred the winning political coalition. I predicted there would be a 2006-style wipeout because of it which, at the time, was a strongly losing bet and yet here we are.
Why do you think people care about Iran so much? I don't think anyone besides my dad has said a word about it in my IRL hearing in 6 months. I catch occasional gripes about gas, but less than a 10th as many as four years ago. No polling I've seen places it anywhere near the top of the list of issues voters care about. Why do you think this topic is going to drive millions of votes as opposed to, say, the economy or immigration?
The political problem with Iran for Trump is not just that the war affects the economy. It is also that Trump is perceived as devoting energy to waging the war rather than focusing on domestic issues such as the economy. This will tend to cause a reduction in Trump's popularity without being directly captured in polls that ask how important people think foreign policy is relative to other issues.
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People generally do not care about Iran a lot, but they do care about the second and third order effects of the Iran war and it's easy to attribute or convince them to attribute those things to the Iran war and the Trump admin.
Significant portions of Trump's coalition and supporters specifically do care significantly about being taken to another foreign war after Trump promised for many years to not engage in more foreign wars and stop the ones we were currently fighting. Many of them supported Trump in a big part for this reason. It's those people who were driving the enthusiasm and culture creation. Instead, the Iran war caused a rift in the coalition which has spilled out all over the place from the Tucker Carlson people to the podcast bros, both of which are important in driving engagement and voter turnout. Midterm elections are about voter turnout and when you do things which significant portions of your coalition think of as being betrayed, you're going to nuke your own turnout which is what we're seeing.
Then wouldn't we expect that to show up in the issue polling, instead of seeing things like "Foreign Policy/Ukraine" ranked in the double digits? Iran doesn't even get a specific slot. It's barely a war.
to be frank, I'm not convinced you read my entire comment
To be frank, I'm not convinced you are arguing sincerely. Am I intended to infer that your justification for your belief is "Tucker Carlson and podcast bros are making this a huge issue that will drive millions of votes, but that slides beneath the notice of all the polling which is otherwise accurate and useful"? Or are they lying to the pollsters about which issues animate their turn against the GOP? Or is this hidden in "economy" instead of "foreign affairs"?
Again, if "Donald Trump betrayed us by bombing Iran" were a driving issue, I would expect it to show up higher in polls ranking what issues people care about. The discrepancy seems much bigger than thinking the regular polls are off by 4%, and you otherwise seem to be operating on the assumption that the main polls are functionally correct.
Glad we cleared that up.
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I guess I ought to make an actual prediction, if only to give everyone the opportunity to laugh at me.
Dems win: Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia.
Reps win: Texas, Iowa, Alaska, Nebraska.
These are all senate btw.
Well, we can laugh and cry together!
If Dems win against the rando Senator's sister in SC, I think it's hard to say that's the electorate which doesn't do the sweep and pick up TX, AK, IA.
You’re probably right, but Darline Graham isn’t a real politician. We don’t even know if she wants the job. She had a cushy nepo position nobody had ever heard of before Trump plucked her out of the aether.
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FYI Trump tried to redo the 2020 census and Republican leaders told him no, Trump tried to exclude illegal immigrants from the 2020 census in his first term and John Roberts told him now, and now that the 2030 census is coming up Trump is trying to keep illegal immigrants from being counted there too.
the SCOTUS decision was basically a blueprint on how he could do it if he wanted; Trump could play hardball with GOP leadership to get it done, but like everything else, he just gives up and decided to do clownishly stupid things instead
pushing stuff back to 2030 could be a strategy if he didn't throw the 2028 election with his clownishly stupid Iran war for Israel which shredded his winning political coalition
let's see some election predictions bud
This is rude, no thank you
I doubt many will believe the reason you're not going to make any predictions is because the post is "rude"; you have already demonstrated you're comfortable being rude in this very thread
It can be both. But I've seen you be rude and not him.
the bolding clownish in quotes much ado about nothing he actually commented on wasn't rude?
come on dude, this isn't serious
Calling attention to your antagonistic editorializing is not rude, no.
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Have you seen their post history?
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Many have commented elsewhere on the unhinged terrible ads currently being run by many increasingly desperate GOP candidates (internal polling is BAD) across the country blowing through $1,000,000,000 making the slimiest, scummiest political consultants generational wealth, e.g., chris lacivita, but it's because the GOP believes driving boomer turnout is their only way to avoid a 2006 wipeout (or worse). Trump&Co have betrayed their millenial and younger supporters and the RFK Jr cohort and so they're hoping to rely on the dying boomer generation one last time. And I don't think it will work.
Instead of using the billions to make real GOTV organizations (like Turning Point or 10xVotes or Scott Pressler), the GOP/Trump Machine has given the money to the scummiest consultants to run yet another dozen rounds of TV ads into the already laughably saturated ads market. Why do they do this? Because ads are easy and known and makes consultants rich while GOTV is hard and costly. These people are scumbags.
GOTV is hard and costly, but it also requires upfront investment. Dumping more money into GOTV a couple weeks before the election would probably cost four figures per marginal vote. It's smarter to build persistent organizations that seem "wasteful" in off-election years but allow effective scaling of GOTV during the election time, but it's tricky to do right. Are you sustaining and building institutional capacity, or giving handouts to a mass class of grifters? Are those even really different things?
Dumping money into crappy ads late in the game isn't an especially efficient way to spend the money, but it's likely nevertheless the most efficient way to spend the money.
Let me tell you about the $1,000,000,000 voter information system the GOP built under Ronda Romney which couldn't even flag GOP registered voters who hadn't voted yet.
There already exist GOTV organizations which could be upscaled, which have cried for funding for many years from Turning Point to College Republicans to 10xyourvote. Before there was 2 weeks before the election, there was months before the election. The problem is the Party is full of incompetent malicious actors whose purpose is to make money instead of actually winning and they're designed more to keep upstart competent people out of the machine than to win elections.
Democrats create a patronage class by getting their GOTV funded by the government. Republicans starve theirs and make college kids sleep on sofas.
NGP-VAN on the Dem side could do that 15 years ago (I helped write some of the code for that). Sigh.
Makes me feel like I should go help even things out, but wherever the money is going, it's not going to the regular workers.
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