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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, John McCain would receive 227 Electoral Votes and Barack Obama would receive 311 Electoral Votes.

If the weighted probabilities of John McCain winning in the states are added up, and then divided by 538, and multiplied by 100, then John McCain should get 233.21 Electoral Votes.

270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the Presidency.

Opinions and commentary are welcome.

Previous projections:

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

I answered my own question ... Intrade is Irish.

Ouch.

I find it very hard to believe that VA and PA are going to obama.

Momaw,

In the recent past, most American credit cards would not allow transactions with Internet betting sites.

Is that still the case?

As I recall, there is no law to that effect, but the threat of Congressional action motivated the card companies to block out gambling.

If only a small minority of the election bettors are Americans, might that seriously impair the accuracy of these “cash polls.”

I mean, if you live in the UK and get all your news from the BBC and CNN International, you haven't heard a kind word about Republicans for at least 30 years.

Using the probabilities above, the results of 20,000 simulated elections are listed in the table below. The "GOP Electoral Votes" is the expected value (probability weighted average). The "Probability of 270" is the point on the cumulative probability distribution for 270 electoral votes or higher.

Week	GOP Electoral Votes	Probability of 270
7-Jan	241.05	20.18%
14-Jan	235.29	14.70%
21-Jan	234.76	14.66%
28-Jan	236.58	15.44%
4-Feb	236.26	15.41%
11-Feb	237.25	16.43%
18-Feb	230.61	12.69%
25-Feb	233.56	15.44%
3-Mar	234.54	16.27%
10-Mar	240.26	22.49%
17-Mar	244.58	24.60%
24-Mar	249.73	28.50%
31-Mar	252.18	30.87%
7-Apr	248.97	27.60%
14-Apr	249.24	27.62%
21-Apr	247.86	25.60%
28-Apr	251.65	29.06%
5-May	250.84	28.07%
12-May	252.31	29.25%
19-May	248.73	25.99%
26-May	250.15	27.10%
2-Jun	248.98	26.46%
9-Jun	247.87	26.81%
16-Jun	248.41	26.06%
23-Jun	233.92	15.76%
30-Jun	234.84	16.21%
14-Jul	237.43	19.14%
21-Jul	231.61	14.15%
28-Jul	233.21	15.18%

For comparison, the results of 20,000 simulations of another model based on Rasmussen state-by-state polls as of 28-July are: GOP Electoral Votes = 230.98, Probability of 270 = 2.46%. The sensitivity of the Rasmussen state-by-state polls is such that a 1.25% reduction in Obama polling and a 1.25% increase in McCain polling results in an additional 30 electoral votes for McCain.

-PJ