Prediction Markets on US Elections

The PredictIt prediction market has opened markets on the nominees of the Democrat and Republican parties for U.S. president in 2024 as well as the eventual winner of the general election. Current standings (2021-10-20 at 19:47 UTC) are:

The way prediction markets work is that you buy shares in Yes or No for your choice at a price of US$1 times the percentage offered in the market. When the event happens and the outcome is known, shares in the correct prediction pay off at par while all others are worthless. So, for example, you could buy 100 shares of Trump president in 2024 for US$ 29 and if he wins the election, you collect US$ 100.

I found the prediction of Biden as the Democrat nominee surprisingly low.

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You have to price in life expectancy (another aneurysm or breakthrough COVID) plus mental decline.

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I have a somewhat practiced physician’s eye, imperfect as it may be. In my experience, Biden’s mien definitely does not comport with a life expectancy sufficient for another term. When he has been less carefully resurrected - sorry, made up, he doesn’t look very likely to live out this term.

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PredictIt is Awesome !

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Right now Ron DeSantis is listed as having a greater probability of being the nominee than Trump. However Trump is listed as having a greater probability of winning the presidency. Thus, despite what our betters tell us, Trump is the better candidate.

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The trouble with prediction markets is that once the favorites become widely known, the adversaries start to exert leverage in destructive ways:

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Big shift to Desantis with Biden dropping slightly and Harris cratering:

At the time of writing, PredicIt shares in Desantis for President are $0.29 v. $0.26 for Trump:

https://www.predictit.org/markets/de…ntial-election

But for the nomination $0.35 and $0.31:

https://www.predictit.org/markets/de…ial-nomination

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DeSantis still holds a slight PredictIt lead for the nomination 33 to 30:

https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7053/Who-will-win-the-2024-Republican-presidential-nomination

but Trump leads overall 26 Trump, 24 DeSantis, 23 Biden:

https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7456/Who-will-win-the-2024-US-presidential-election

which indicates he’s the better general election candidate.

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I get all these emails:”We want DonRon!”
Now, wouldnt tht be too effing perfect, If DeSantis would run as VP?
Everybody would know trump can’t run in 2028 but, If Trump does even half as good a job as he did last time, his VP should be a shoo-in. It really is the GOP dream-team.
Of course there re reasons why neither of them might want that. And maybe if Trump gets the nomination he should pick Kristi Noem or Mayra Flores. And maybe DeSantis would feel it’s too big. Risk, running with Trump might scuttle the rest of his promising career. (personally I vacillate between thinking Trump is the ONLY one who can do what needs to be done, and worrying that he may be the ONLY Republican who, could, possibly, lose in 2024.)

But let me take this opportunity to say that, if Trump runs again, he is the bravest man we have ever had in American politics. My god, they didn’t subject even NIXON to the kind of slanderous obloquy Trump has had to endure. How CAN he be willing to take more? Abject adoration is, in my view, the only correct response to such a warrior.

Also, “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”? Beria made it sound so EASY!
Oh, over 7 years now they’ve been yellin’ the ecce homo, But, um—the crime? None so far despite millions of dollars paid to partisan “investigators.” The rabid, Trump- hating AG of NY finally reduced in desperation to bringing a CIVIL fraud suit—when everybody knows it is the responsibility of the lender, not the borrower, to establish the value of loan collateral.

In spite of that, I predict we will see Trump in manacles before the midterms. Which does NOT mean he won’t still run again. He has but one life to give for his country—and he’s givin’ it!

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  1. The “new cities” on “new land” is supposed to appeal to The Nation of Settlers and the instinct toward The Laboratory of the States (aka Cuius regio, eius religio) but Trump can’t deliver and more importantly for the election outcome, Trump’s failure to deploy the military to secure the border, like the Apollo program, has returned cynicism to the Nation of Settlers in a way that cannot be so easily overcome – not even with the nightmare of the Biden years as a stick to the Trump carrot. The reduction of the working white class heterosexual male turnout is going to persist at the same time that “the demographic transition” (we don’t call it “race replacement” do we?) has further shifted the electoral base.

  2. OK, Theil.

  3. Rural areas have been depopulated and what population is left has been denuded of human capital at a genetic level by the economy outbidding young rural men for the fertile years of young women – particularly in those areas. Strong head-wind there.

  4. What? Is he going to have some way of allowing the young men to outbid the economy for the fertile years of the young women with the most economically valuable characteristics to reverse the aforementioned dysgenics inherent in all current technological societies, with the possible exception of Israel? How is he going to repeat, for The Nation of Settlers, the Jewish propaganda campaign portraying Jews as the replacement of Christ in Holocaustianity so women want to have Jewish men sire their children? I get it that he’s The Likud Candidate (and have said so ever since his Mexican Rapist Speech) and I get it that the Likud’s want to preserve USrael, but I see insufficient evidence they have what it takes to do it. They have to have their “Come To Jesus” moment and admit that they have some serious House Cleaning to do. If they do I believe they’ll be forgiven. That, IMHO, is the only way forward to another baby boom. Women have to believe in the men and Hollywood blew all its social capital.

  5. OK, Trump.

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You don’t have to be so enthusiastic! :grinning:

To be more serious, what can President Trump say?
He can’t say “Build the Wall”, because everyone knows now that the Institutional Republicrats would stymie him, just like they did before when they held House & Senate.
He can’t say “Lock Her Up”, because everyone knows now that the unelected DC Swamp Deep State outranks the mere President and looks after its own, especially when the Institutional Republicrats are a mere front for the Deep State.

It is too late, anyway. Either Biden* bumbles his way into a global thermonuclear war (which at least would end the Swamp – ill wind, etc), or we get societal collapse as the US and the rest of the West go bankrupt when the willingness of foreigners to accept our worthless IOUs dissipates. (Good news! That would end the Swamp too).

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Well… okay… maybe Trump can’t say he’d do this but he did have his chance to DO it (note the date):

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A. I would add that there are currently plenty of economic opportunities in rural areas and they cannot draw people from the mega cities.

B. Outbidding young rural men… excellent point. I recently was visiting my hobby type farm in a rural community. I ran into a classmate and his son. His mid-twenties son will end up taking the entire farm. I don’t know the exact value of the farm, but it is easily over $10 million. This boy is good looking, excellent physical condition, intelligent and wealthy or soon to be wealthy. He is single. When the young man left to go home alone, it bothered me. He has little to no chance of finding a young lady and to raise a family.

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The internet keeps telling us there are plenty of attractive young Ukrainian ladies “in your area” who are looking for love. :grinning:

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The Norwegian Bachelor Farmers of Garrison Keillor’s “A Prarie Home Companion” are a mythic reflection of a process that’s been going on for as long as civilization. Some believe it to be eugenic – some (like me) dysgenic – some, such as transhumanists (like Keith Henson), irrelevant. It’s ironic that I actually invited (the aforelinked) Harpending to join my blog and he accepted on the strength my review of his math that Salter used as the basis for his book “On Genetic Interests” and commented on my essay Removing Lewontin’s Fallacy From Hamilton’s Rule that it was a viable approach to reformulating sociobiology but would require a rather concerted effort in Monte Carlo simulations – an approach people had not been using. So in a sense Harpending was both my nemesis and my only ally – perhaps because he was the most intellectually honest member of the Academy of Sciences. I really miss him.

Another “irony” is that I moved to Keillor’s Minnesota to work on the computer networking aspect of Bill Norris’s “Back to the Countryside Via Technology” and used to wake up every morning, across the street from an acre or so of computers labeled “Ft. Mead”, my dreams guided by a gentle voice from “A Prairie Home Morning Show”. Norris’s forlorn hope of not only preserving The Nation of Settlers but of preventing the vulnerability to nuclear attack implied by centralization of population, was viciously attacked by Wall Street financial press, inducting his middle management to a mutiny that deep-sixed my work on a mass market version of PLATO.

The most ironic aspect of this came decades later when Keillor became a victim of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

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Henry Harpending was awesome. I was lucky to have spent a day strolling around Salt Lake City with him 12 years ago or so.

Fascinating to read Norris’ ideas come into fruition over the past couple of years: several of my technologically savvy friends have gone into farming.

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Perhaps the Musk flirtation with Scott has caused Desantis to make a move:

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There’s an article on Am Greatness today: “Third Time’s the Charm for Trump?” (Nicholas Waddy). He’s essentially saying it’s so frightening now what the Left is doing, just because Trump is a candidate, we better, kinda,hope he doesn’t win. Because look what they did last time he won; this time, it would be scorched earth!

I don’t know. I was so frightened in Nov 2016 when those violent Antifa riots started up—and then all the violence in DC on Jan 20. I was really scared he might not be able—allowed— to govern.

But he did, magnificently. So it seems to me if we say, well, let’s pick a smaller target, somebody the Left doesn’t hate QUITE so much— aren’t we just admitting defeat? And shoving somebody out front who won’t be as big a challenge to ‘em?

Nah. Trump is my man. Whatever happens it will be worth it. Let’s wound the serpent’s head, at least.

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