Anyone with available capital interested in making money from this election should spend ~1hr researching TX, come to the accurate conclusion that Biden is favored there, and bet accordingly (buy Biden in TX, Dems to win TX senate race, Biden electoral college margin >210 EC votes, etc). The expected returns are much higher than betting on Biden to win overall, because Biden TX is currently trading at around 30% to win TX, when fair value is ~65%. These twitter feeds from (semi)pro politics bettors are a good place to start: 1, 2.
The key argument is that polling systematically underestimates Democrats with Latino voters in Texas, and that the electorate will be much more favorable to Democrats than in 2018, when Dems lost the Senate race by ~2.5 points in a worse national environment.
Polling shows Biden and Trump very close in the state
polling in Texas systematically underestimates Dems with Latinos
Turnout in TX seems to be much higher than past years, which is great for Dems because people who didn’t vote in 2016/2018 are disproportionately young/nonwhite
Dems nearly won in 2018 despite depressed Latino turnout
Do you think FiveThirtyEight and the Economist haven’t appropriately accounted for these considerations in their models? I don’t think the discrepancy with the markets are so large. Where did ~65% come from?
Neither model takes into account any of these factors, and indeed their discrepancy with the markets are much smaller.
65% just comes from my estimate of the fair value of a TX biden contract, which comes from...whatever internal process generates probabilistic credences.
There’s plausible arguments for Trump being favored (he is currently ahead in the polls, after all), but I can’t think of any good arguments for him being at ~75c.
EDIT: Trump and Biden are now tied in the 538 TX polling average
I mean yes, clearly if you believe the Economist and 538 models are reasonable, then the TX bet isn’t +EV. My point is that the models are clearly unreasonable for the reasons listed above, and the bet is actually extremely +EV.
There are three arguments (1) polls underestimating Dems in Southern states, and (2) benchmarking against 2018 senate, and (3) some low-quality Tweets.
It’s weird to hold a lot of stock in (2), given noise from candidate selection and other variables.
If you place a lot of weight on (1), the actually sane bet would be Biden in AZ. It’s rated 2nd and 4th most likely to go dem by Cohn and Wasserman respectively.
Biden for AZ: 77% likely (Economist), priced at 54% on Election Betting Odds.
Anyone with available capital interested in making money from this election should spend ~1hr researching TX, come to the accurate conclusion that Biden is favored there, and bet accordingly (buy Biden in TX, Dems to win TX senate race, Biden electoral college margin >210 EC votes, etc). The expected returns are much higher than betting on Biden to win overall, because Biden TX is currently trading at around 30% to win TX, when fair value is ~65%. These twitter feeds from (semi)pro politics bettors are a good place to start: 1, 2.
The key argument is that polling systematically underestimates Democrats with Latino voters in Texas, and that the electorate will be much more favorable to Democrats than in 2018, when Dems lost the Senate race by ~2.5 points in a worse national environment.
I spent some time. I do not see the smoking gun. Can you post more details or links?
Polling shows Biden and Trump very close in the state
polling in Texas systematically underestimates Dems with Latinos
Turnout in TX seems to be much higher than past years, which is great for Dems because people who didn’t vote in 2016/2018 are disproportionately young/nonwhite
Dems nearly won in 2018 despite depressed Latino turnout
Do you think FiveThirtyEight and the Economist haven’t appropriately accounted for these considerations in their models? I don’t think the discrepancy with the markets are so large. Where did ~65% come from?
Neither model takes into account any of these factors, and indeed their discrepancy with the markets are much smaller.
65% just comes from my estimate of the fair value of a TX biden contract, which comes from...whatever internal process generates probabilistic credences.
Yeah the +EV of this bet is marginal at best.
Are there any important considerations in the opposite direction?
There’s plausible arguments for Trump being favored (he is currently ahead in the polls, after all), but I can’t think of any good arguments for him being at ~75c.
EDIT: Trump and Biden are now tied in the 538 TX polling average
The Texas bet (TX) seems EV neutral to me, and clearly far worse than the nationwide electoral college (EC) bet.
Biden for EC: 95% likely (The Economist model), priced at 62%
Biden for TX: 26% likely (The Economist), priced at 29%
The two Twitter feeds are full of a lot of shitposting, and don’t update me much.
I mean yes, clearly if you believe the Economist and 538 models are reasonable, then the TX bet isn’t +EV. My point is that the models are clearly unreasonable for the reasons listed above, and the bet is actually extremely +EV.
There are three arguments (1) polls underestimating Dems in Southern states, and (2) benchmarking against 2018 senate, and (3) some low-quality Tweets.
It’s weird to hold a lot of stock in (2), given noise from candidate selection and other variables.
If you place a lot of weight on (1), the actually sane bet would be Biden in AZ. It’s rated 2nd and 4th most likely to go dem by Cohn and Wasserman respectively.
Biden for AZ: 77% likely (Economist), priced at 54% on Election Betting Odds.