Tester’s definitely on my list; I contributed to his campaign back in 2006 as well. Heidi Heitkamp, Elizabeth Warren, and Tim Kaine are also definites.
Princeton Election Consortium has an ActBlue Page of High Leverage Target races for 2012: ActBlue
The list follows:
Heidi Heitkamp (ND-Sen)
Joe Donnelly (IN-Sen)
DCCC
Jon Tester (MT-Sen)
Tim Kaine (VA-Sen)
Chris Murphy (CT-Sen)
Elizabeth Warren (MA-Sen)
Chris Murphy is a surprise: a couple of months ago he was a Lean Democrat, rather than a tossup.
Last I checked, Charlie Cook’s analysis was placed behind a paywall, though I had managed to download his listings this Spring. Still public are Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball and The Rothenberg Political Report.
Gotta have Lizzie Warren! And I’m not saying that just because she’s so hot!
Waitwait. Are you saying if I give these guys $275 for a bet that Obama wins, and Obama wins, they’ll give me $375 back?!
I hear tell the Koch Brothers tried to put down a ten million dollar bet on Obama. One of them was crying, I hear it was David, the younger one.
I’m surprised Claire McCaskill isn’t on that list (Missouri - she’s running against ‘legitimate rape’ Akin and the race is tightening again!).
I’m curious how you got the numbers 72% & 28%. Did you do something like the following:
p1 = 3/(3+10) = 23.1%
p2 = 9/(4+9) = 69.2%
Splitting the 7.7% difference evenly increases p1 to 27% and p2 to 73%
These are not that different from your numbers of 28% and 72%, but I’m wondering if I’m missing something in how you came up with the numbers.
FWIW, my own estimate of the odds, based on state poll results, currently puts Obama vs Romney at 67% vs 33%.
Does anyone have a link to a page that describes what model 538 uses, or does he not publish the details of his model? I haven’t been able to find info on this.
No one who cares in the least about the outcome of an election (or a football game) should place a bet on it; clouds the judgment.
I am not an insider of course but my understanding has always been that phones are prohibited because of federal laws against the interstate transmission of gambling information. Vegas always was given credit for having the earliest and most reliable betting line on any event and everyone back East was supposedly hot to get the info first. The various bookies all wanted access to the Vegas line as early as possible. The government clamped down. This rule certainly predated cell phones and such.
p1 = 10/(10+3) = 76.9%
p2 = 4/(4+9) = 30.8%
(76.9% + 30.8% - 100%) = 7.7% is the excess due to vigorish.
(Splitting the vigorish properly between the two sides is not as clear-cut as it might seem! Should it be a portion of player’s bet or house’s counterbet? Sportsbooks may have a formula to cope but I’ve not seen it published. In American roulette, vigorish is a fixed portion of player action but in prior threads I’ve explained why that doesn’t make sense.) So vigorish should be a compromise between portions of player and house actions. Anyway, just “eyeballing” the numbers seemed good enough to “split the vig plausibly” and get
Obama 72% Romney 28%
I clicked the link that Measure for Measure provided in response to this query, but saw no mention of what I think is the key unknown:
What is the chance of an October surprise?
I asked about this earlier with a response that only incumbent can produce a “Surprise” but I disagree. Terrorists, for example, could do something that might affect the election.
Or the GOP could come up with a last minute surprise. For example documents that “prove” Obama was born in Kenya after all. (I’m not suggesting that valid such documents exist, just perhaps something good enough to fool FoxNews for a few weeks.)
This is the opposite of the calculation you showed, Polerius,but I should have mentioned that your way is just as valid – looking at the counterbets instead of the bets.
Both roads lead to Rome. (But who’s on the Road to Oval Office? 
)
Has there ever been an October surprise? There’s been talk of an October surprise since at least 1980.
All the models are essentially projections off of the historical record. They don’t handle extreme events well. In fact, they don’t handle extreme events at all IMHO. If you think wild card events are more likely to hurt Obama, then adjust the 538 numbers accordingly.
Also note that all the data is pre-Citizens United. If you think an avalanche of Super-Pac money will make a difference, adjust the odds accordingly. It’s for these sorts of reasons that I place some weight on the Intrade results.
That said, Intrade’s books are pretty funny. Go to the the Obama page and click “Unmatched predictions”. Then do the same at the Romney page. There’s a 5000 share floor for Romney and a 3000 share ceiling for Obama. Those barriers have been moving around. But there’s a well monied gorilla operating on the market making sure that Romney’s numbers don’t crater. The player appears to be active – the barriers ratchet over time.
So just to review: there are good reasons to take the historical extrapolations and adjust them towards a more 50-50 scenario. The intrade results also appear to be imbalanced by a larger player. No contradiction there, but ascertaining the true odds (assuming the concept is even meaningful) isn’t straightforward. Good times.
PS: And we have 3 debates to go. The fat lady is off stage.
If you are looking for the percentage chance of either winning according to real betting activity, as always the place to check is Betfair the British created betting exchange. Because anyone can back or lay any proposition there is no vig to speak of, and sometimes markets are betting at less than 100%.
Here Obama is $1.46 (68.5%) and Romney is $3.15 (31.7%) with virtually no vig to factor. The current hold is $6.1m with $4.4m on Obama. The market may be interesting to watch as Betfair is the home of genuine arbitrage betting - backing both sides of a proposition to guarantee a profit. Particularly good fun are major tennis matches. Millions of dollars will be bet during the match with the prices fluctuating on every point in a tight match.