2024 Elections Thread

[dismalist]

How accurate have election odds been in past presidential elections?

The betting favorite has only lost twice since 1866, according to the Conversation, a nonprofit news organization – in 2016 when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was favored over Trump throughout the campaign, only to lose and in 1948, when Democrat Harry Truman beat 8-to-1 odds to defeat Republican Thomas Dewey.

--Delaware on-line, Oct. 17.

[jimbogumbo]

Prediction markets are showing a Trump victory.

I'm scoping out possible retirement locations in Canada.

Trump may win, but prediction markets are meaningless. The folks betting have no idea what will happen and they are far from a representative sample. Polling is a better guide, but even that should be taken with a grain of salt given tendency for polling error - sometimes favoring Rs and sometimes Ds.

Plus, there are way more "fake" polls now. By fake, I mean just that. They don't follow best practices, and are by design meant to influence the polling averages rather than try to accurately reflect the situation.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Prediction markets are showing a Trump victory.

I'm scoping out possible retirement locations in Canada.

Trump may win, but prediction markets are meaningless. The folks betting have no idea what will happen and they are far from a representative sample. Polling is a better guide, but even that should be taken with a grain of salt given tendency for polling error - sometimes favoring Rs and sometimes Ds.

Plus, there are way more "fake" polls now. By fake, I mean just that. They don't follow best practices, and are by design meant to influence the polling averages rather than try to accurately reflect the situation.

All we know is that the race will probably be close. Looking at polls or betting markets can be fun, but they aren't telling us anything more than that.

[pgher]

Great analysis of the situation by David Brooks, probably paywalled: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/17/opinion/harris-trump-close-race.html

[Parasaurolophus]

Prediction markets are showing a Trump victory.

I'm scoping out possible retirement locations in Canada.

I'm sorry to say, you probably don't have enough points. Ours is not a particularly compassionate immigration system.

I checked a few years back and made it over the line by a hair. And my wife has a useful job so she cleared the bar pretty easily.

Not looking to move to Canada, but just saying.

The sooner the better, then! Age reduces the value of your points.

Plus, we're going all-in against immigration at the moment, because apparently immigrants are to blame for the housing crisis.