I know a couple of guys that are rampant gamblers, and very politically opinionated to boot. Neither of these guys is top 1% rich, but they make a decent low six figure living. Here are the details on their bet:
Hillary will win 300 or more electoral votes and the majority popular vote as reported by the Associated Press. Wager is $1,000.
Would you make this bet yourself, and if so, which side would you take? That Hillary 1) accomplishes the conditions or 2) she does not?
I personally think Hillary wins, I am just not connected to the electoral projections to feel confident that she get’s above 300. So no, I wouldn’t make the bet that size without better info.
Majority popular vote? Like above 50%? What odds are being offered? If it’s straight up, then I wouldn’t take it – most polls have her in the high 40s, but not above 50, considering the 3rd party candidates.
Really? Less than 50% but 350 Electoral votes? Have you done a 270toWin map that shows that result? Or maybe numbers on 538’s Swingomatic? Because that combo doesn’t sound realistic.
That particular combo (less than 50% PV but 350 EV) doesn’t sound too impossible to me; which is to say, if Clinton gets up to 350 EV, I don’t think it terribly unlikely that she still gets there with less than 50% of the PV.
Getting to 350 EV seems like the trickier thing than getting there while earning less than 50% of the PV. 350 would require Clinton to hold all of her firewall states, all of the swing states, plus one from a previous Republican state (AZ, GA, or UT being the most likely). That’s not impossible, but would require either Clinton to completely blow Trump out of the water in the popular vote, or some amount of third-party spoilers making a previously-strong R state to turn blue. Electoral map.
If the recent tightening of the polls is accurate, then I think a more likely way for Clinton to get to 350 EV would be by third-party candidates siphoning off votes who couldn’t bring themselves to vote Trump, but couldn’t vote Clinton either. Something like 47-43-7-3.
Of course, I don’t believe that Clinton will actually get to 350; prior to last weeks events, I thought it was plausible that she ends up flipping AZ or GA while holding serve elsewhere, but now I think somewhere between 300-341 EV is more likely. Admittedly, I haven’t been paying too much attention to polls in the last week; after the Comey fiasco, I just stopped paying attention to the whole coverage of the election in disgust.
Nevermind my previous post. I forgot that there were third parties this go around. The possibility that she would break 50% is so low that if I were a regular on a legitimate election trading site I’d take the “con” part of the bet, but not for $1000. I’d risk $100 though.
I’d take the under since I don’t see how Clinton is going to get 50% of the popular vote but the only way I’d bet a grand is if a could win enough that my wife doesn’t kill me for it. Give me 3:1 and I’ll take the under straight up I’d do $100
If Clinton gets a majority of the popular vote she’ll blow past 300 electoral votes so this boils down to a bet on Clinton getting a majority of the popular vote. Nate Silver gives a 30% chance of that happening. If you give me better than 7:3 I might take that bet. Even money, no way.
The event that Hillary wins 300+ and the event that she wins Florida are almost the exact same event (she does need another state, e.g. Nevada, to go with Florida but if she wins the big toss-up state, NV should be easy anti-climax.) However, with Johnson and Stein sponging up many of the confused and misinformed, getting 50% of the popular vote is unlikely. I definitely bet against the parlay. (Though I’ll be giddy with joy if it comes to pass.)
It’s close. The over 300 EV is to me far over 50/50 but the over 50% of the total vote is a bit under. Taking 538 at face value they are calling her at 48.6. Now I personally suspect that the polls are undercalling her by 3ish so I’d be tempted to bet on her hitting it … but not at even odds. Get me 2 to 1 and I’ll seriously consider it … $1000 is rich for my blood but a few hundred maybe.
Assume that the third parties (Johnson/McMullin/Stein) get a combined 5%. That’s a bit of a stretch, but not completely out of the question. That means either Clinton or Trump would only need a plurality of 48% to win a state.
In 1992, when Ross Perot was at his height, Bill Clinton got 370 EV with only 43.2% of the popular vote. In 1996, with Perot less of an influence but still on the ballot, Clinton won with 379 EV and 49.2% of the popular vote.
Give me odds and I might take the bet, but not at even money.
I did run it through a simulator and had Hillary with 347, Trump with 191. Obama beat Romney by only 4% of the popular vote, and if the popular vote turns out to be something like Hillary 49%, Trump 44%, and 7% for the other candidates, then that would be a bigger margin than Obama’s win while still being under 50%.
I said earlier that she would get over 50% so I might theoretically have taken the bet then. That was pre-Comey. RCP has the 4-way at 45, 42, 5, and 2%. That leaves 6% undecided. Johnson and Stein will lose at least another percentage point each, but McMullin may get up to one. So 7% undecided. Could they break 5% to 2%? That’s about the proportion they broke for Obama and Romney.
The odds are low of that today. I don’t understand the point of betting unless you have a sure thing, which means I don’t bet. But if I were a gambler I wouldn’t see this as far-fetched.