[Momaw Nadon]

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 234.45 Electoral Votes.

270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the Presidency.

Opinions and commentary are welcome.

[Momaw Nadon]

Previous projections:

2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 7/28/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 7/21/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 7/14/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 7/7/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 6/30/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 6/23/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 6/16/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 6/9/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 6/2/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 5/26/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 5/19/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 5/12/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 5/5/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 4/28/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 4/21/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 4/14/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 4/7/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 3/31/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 3/24/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 3/17/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 3/10/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 3/3/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 2/25/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 2/18/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 2/11/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 2/4/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 1/28/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 1/21/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 1/14/2008
2008 Projected Presidential Electoral Votes as of 1/7/2008

[Momaw Nadon]

[Momaw Nadon]

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

[alloysteel]

They don’t know, do they.

Fortunately, projections do not count in determining the outcome of any election. They only serve in forcing upon the underdog either a determination to strive even more greatly, or collapse the incentive to attempt to go for it altogether, and retreat pre-emptively.

To those who may be in the lead, there is the deadly danger of complacency, or possibly, a warm glow while basking in the love of the majority, and a comfortable sense of not being forced to change anything except what you want to, without having to wait for the consent of the minority.

There are still a number of key questions that are not being asked.

[Crazieman]

[HighlyOpinionated]

My Prediction: John McCain by 4.5% of the total votes cast and with enough electoral votes to win the nomination. It's going to be close in some of the States listed as Democrat wins. Any State with about a 40% chance of McCain winning is going to go McCain by slight margins, but enough votes not to need a recount. This is based on the continued imploding of Barry Obama which is progressing nicely.

There is just too much time between Barry Obama declaring himself High Potentate-King-Caliph of the Americas and the General Election. He can't/couldn't maintain his hold on Voters long enough to win the election, which is why McCain's numbers are rising as Obama's are falling, albeit slowly. We don't want the numbers to move too quickly, after all. The more the public hears Obama's rants, the less likely they are to vote for him once they get inside the voting booth. Do Not believe the exit polls. They'll show an Obama victory, but it won't hold up at the end of the day. People will say "on the record" what is popular to say. I predict that in decidedly "black" areas that Obama will not get all the black votes. And in decidedly liberal areas, Obama has a margin but it won't be a big as the Democrats hope.

AND who do you have to thank for the Republican surge? Why Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, of course.

[Cyber Liberty]

Intrade predicted Duncan Hunter would win the Republican nomination for President.

[bIlluminati]

A common call was 269-269, if McCain picks up Ohio, New Hampshire, and a couple other states. However, most people, including this mapping, forget that Nebraska will almost certainly give Obama at least one electoral vote.

But Obama has the odds against him. Quite a few voters who voted for Bush in 2004 will return in 2008 against Obama.

[Political Junkie Too]

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%
4-Aug	234.45	16.45%

For comparison, the results of 20,000 simulations of another model based on Rasmussen state-by-state polls as of 4-Aug are: GOP Electoral Votes = 232.92, Probability of 270 = 3.11%. 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 261.93 Electoral Votes for McCain, with a 36.63% chance of winning.

-PJ