Sunday, November 6, 2016

Comey (Part 17)

With word that Comey is again not recommending charges be brought against Clinton, we are seeing the immediate reaction in the prediction markets.

Note that the Market-Based LPR probability reacts instantaneously.  As the state-by-state market contracts are analyzed in real-time, and we continuously recalculate the overall probability!

Clinton's overall probability is moving up steadily as the news spreads, and at the time of this writing is at 86.6%.

Candidates head to... Michigan?

Michigan, one of the blue wall states which has had a high probability all year of voting for Clinton, is suddenly drawing the attention of both campaigns.

With Trump's team working hard to construct the narrative that he is on offense and expanding the map, Clinton is moving to shore up the state.  While LPR's market-based odds place Trump's odds of winning Michigan at 25.1% - a dramatic improvement, LPR's poll-based odds indicate that if the election had been held on Nov 3rd/4th that Clinton would have had a 95% chance of victory.  It's not clear if there has really been enough movement since then to account for such significant movement in the state.  Probably not.

In true Trump fashion, after pushing the narrative of the expanding map, the billionaire taunted Clinton for planning to go to Michigan, calling it a waste of time.  The strategy may be to fill up Clinton's compressed schedule, while Trump crisscrosses the country.  Even though all of the states he visits may not be in play, if he can increase his probabilities in any of them, and keep Clinton out of the states he needs to win, it'll be well worth it.