[Momaw Nadon]

Intrade.com is a futures market in which people bet on the outcomes of various things such as the results of elections.

According to the current trading prices of the futures contracts, an estimate can be found of what traders are betting will be the outcome of 2008 Presidential Election.

If the traders are correct, the Republican Presidential candidate would receive 234 Electoral Votes and the Democratic Presidential candidate would receive 304 Electoral Votes.

If the weighted probabilities of the Republican Presidential candidate winning in the states are added up, and then divided by 538, and multiplied by 100, then the Republican Presidential candidate should get 236.58 Electoral Votes.

270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the Presidency.

Opinions and commentary are welcome.

[Momaw Nadon]

Previous projections:

2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 1/21/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 1/14/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 1/7/2008

[Momaw Nadon]

[Momaw Nadon]

If you want on (or off) of the weekly InTrade Projected Presidential Electoral Vote ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail.

[Momaw Nadon]

Colorado is at 50.0% today.

The bid price is 35.0 and the ask price is 55.0. These average to 45.0.

Thus, the tie goes to the Democratic Presidential candidate.

[TomGuy]

Arkansas is a doubtful red. It has changed in the last decade.

A Dem governor followed Huckabee. And it has 2 Dem Senators. All but one of the Representatives are in the D column.

[Y2000]

what was their prediction for 2000, 2004 elections ?

[longhorn too]

Need to start working on Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, and Ohio big time.

[KarlInOhio]

DC has a 3.7% chance of a Republican winning? Not even if Hillary were to eat a baby on stage.

Ohio is the really ugly one. Colorado, Missouri, Iowa, New Mexico and Ohio look like the changes from 2004 and of those Ohio is the worst at 27.5% chance for victory.

Thanks for all your years of incompetent public service ex-Governor Taft. You may have killed the party in Ohio.

[crescen7]

Intrade is useless as a predictive tool. It is moves in response to published polls, with the exception of the last few hours before a local election.

For instance, Romney and McCain (in Florida) have fluctuated over the last 3 days between 40 and 60. They move every time a poll is released, they’ll probably settle in around 50 / 50 until tommorrow.

IF their is some notable event that makes news, but us too late to show up in the polls - it could move intrade in the final moments, but it’s completely useless as an indicator of November elections.

[PGalt]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

[chs68]

Someone really thinks there is a 3.7% chance a Republican will win the District of Columbia??!!

Do they also think there is a 4.)% chance of snow in Hell?

[freespirited]

These numbers are wild guesses until we have a nominee.

[ricks_place]

Just last month the Intrade market predicted Obama in South Carolina with a 20% chance of winning. Obama won with 55% of the vote. Intrade seems like an unreliable predictor. Maybe some politicians and their allies look at this as another media battle ground. Buy a victory prediction and hope for a self fulfilling prophesy.

[RichardW]

Seems pretty accurate to me. Only about five states could be said to be in play.

[beckysueb]

They always bet on the dems and it is always very close but leaning Republican in the end.

[FreedomProtector]

Having Huckabee on the ticket would greatly improve the chances of turning these now blue states, red:

Iowa (7), Missouri (11), Ohio (20), Penn (21)

Rep = 293
Dems = 245