Betting odds going into the first GOP debate!
On Rawaswamy's recent surge
Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Election Betting Updates newsletter!
This will go out once a week to inform readers about the latest betting odds, combined with a little bit of strictly non-partisan analysis.
To start with:
Vivek Ramaswamy praises betting odds' accuracy
A Politico reporter wrote this about Ramaswamy:
“Later, after he’d finished talking with [Jordan] Peterson, Ramaswamy will surpass DeSantis in the betting markets. I know this because he checked his phone as we were riding between his home and his headquarters and he was talking about how such markets were “actually” better indicators than public polling.”
Ramaswamy is right — betting odds are indeed a better predictor than polls. See here for the track record.
Even if you are Nate Silver and devote your career to making predictions based on polls, you'll still only roughly tie the betting odds:
For any normal individual, the betting odds are the most single robust and predictably-accurate measure to look at.
The GOP Debate is tonight at 9pm!
I'm looking forward to watching it. You can watch it on Fox News, or stream it live on Rumble.com.
Here's what bettors think going into the debate:
I suspect Ramaswamy will further rise during/after the debate. While his speaking ability is partly “priced in” -- I know people who already have money on him, expecting him to do well in the debate -- I think traders on net don't realize how polished of a speaker he is, or that:
He once did some 30 interviews in one day alone, and has appeared on more than 150 podcasts since launching his campaign in February.
The speaking ability he has from practice like that could give him an advantage over people like Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott, even if they have much more policy experience.
You can also get a sense of Ramaswamy from this John Stossel interview with him:
Why does Ramaswamy have the best shot of beating Trump, per the bettors? I think because DeSantis has already been seriously wounded by Trump. Based on my conversations with GOP primary voters, Trump has successfully branded DeSantis as "part of the establishment." While that seems a bit absurd to me, considering DeSantis's policy track record, it has stuck, and it's not obvious it can be overcome.
By contrast, Ramaswamy has been playing nice with Trump, and as a result still has an opening to win over the ~1/3rd of GOP voters who like Trump but who might consider a new face for either electability or temperament reasons. If the 1/3rd of Republicans who aren't in love with Trump were to coalesce around Ramaswamy before the Super Tuesday primaries (March 5, 2024) and Ramaswamy can peel off half of the aforementioned block of the Trump-leaners, then he could win.
Trump, of course, leads by a wide margin, but there’s still “only” a 2/3rds chance he’ll be the nominee.
The Democratic field is static
The Democratic party has decided not to host any primary debate in 2024 -- which is not uncommon when an incumbent President is involved. According to ABC News, no incumbent President has participated in a primary debate since Gerald Ford in the 1970s.
Here's where the race stands:
Gavin Newsom is the most likely non-Biden winner, which is basically the "if Biden gets a heart attack" outcome. RFK, Jr. has a tiny outside chance, but overall the bettors think it's unlikely that much of the Democratic voting base has an appetite for his non-mainstream takes on vaccines, the deep state, etc.
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