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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 232 Electoral Votes and Barack Obama would receive 306 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 246.64 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 can’t see how Obama is still winning on intrade when the race is pretty well tied in most all polls.

Blue Virginia?

According to this, McPain should just campaign in OH, NH, and CO and maybe try to reinforce VA. Most states are heavily precommitted.

Where are the hundreds of post Saddleback polls?

The media used to have poll results even before a “debate/forum” was over!

This is the first thing even close, and it’s not post Saddleback. (is it?)

Two of the last three polls have McCain ahead in OH (one of them, the most recent, a Dem poll), so right there is a swing of 40 EV.

If the weighted probabilities of John McCain winning in the states are added up, and then divided by 538, and multiplied by 100....raised to the 4th power of i, integrated where Fx= the near total hypotnuese of clintonian triangulation, halved by 1/3 the elecltorate of 1938...... Obama still comes out looking stupid.

Come on Alabama,we can do better than that.

BTTT

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%
11-Aug	242.62	21.56%
18-Aug	246.64	25.20%

For comparison, the results of 20,000 simulations of another model based on Rasmussen state-by-state polls as of 18-Aug are: GOP Electoral Votes = 244.11, Probability of 270 = 11.64%. 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 276.06 Electoral Votes for McCain, with a 62.05% chance of winning.

The polls are starting to move in McCain's direction. If you think that poll results are oversampling Democrats, then McCain has passed the 270 point already.

On 19-Aug, Rasmussen released the latest Florida poll. McCain jumped from being behind by 1 (45%-46%), to ahead by 3 (46%-43%). This moved McCain to an expected Electoral Votes=254.48, Probability of 270 = 21.21%. With the +/-1.25% adjustment, McCain has expected Electoral Votes=283.72, Probability of 270 = 77.35%.

-PJ