Yes, that seems true in retrospect. I think the bettors had a general rule that "crazy"-seeming populist things wouldn't win. After Brexit and Trump, I think they dropped that and started taking populist wins seriously.
Maxim, have you ever spent time thinking about the popular vote?
I have an agreement with my wife to not put serious money into political betting. I think betting on the winner of this election is foolish, but I have to think betting for a Kamala PV win is practically free money that I wish I could grab, and the odds are revealing some deeply irrational behavior. At one point, Polymarket's PV market was peaking above 40% Trump: >60% probability of Trump winning PV conditional on him winning EV. Crazy, and far crazier than giving him 60%+ odds of winning the EV -- we should all know in our guts that if Trump wins, the most likely path is one that looks a lot like 2016, though probably with a slimmer EV margin as there's a good chance in that scenario he only wins part of the Blue Wall. We all know what the man's coalition looks like and that it's a minority coalition with a hard ceiling of support.
My suspicion is that if Trump can win the PV for the 49 states ex-CA, as he did in 2016, he's a strong favorite to win the election, and if not, he loses. But winning the 50-state PV is almost entirely off the table at this point; he maybe had a decent chance against Biden but still under 50%.
This is another point that Nate Silver indicates too-low confidence on though. I haven't seen him give PV probabilities for a while, but I believe they've been too high for Trump when he's stated them, even if they're lower than the betting markets.
one anecdotal case comment.
in Brexit, the polls suggested toss up with very slight advantage to remain.
but in the referendum day I recall some betting markets giving remain like 85%. huge delusionary miss it felt then
Yes, that seems true in retrospect. I think the bettors had a general rule that "crazy"-seeming populist things wouldn't win. After Brexit and Trump, I think they dropped that and started taking populist wins seriously.
Maxim, have you ever spent time thinking about the popular vote?
I have an agreement with my wife to not put serious money into political betting. I think betting on the winner of this election is foolish, but I have to think betting for a Kamala PV win is practically free money that I wish I could grab, and the odds are revealing some deeply irrational behavior. At one point, Polymarket's PV market was peaking above 40% Trump: >60% probability of Trump winning PV conditional on him winning EV. Crazy, and far crazier than giving him 60%+ odds of winning the EV -- we should all know in our guts that if Trump wins, the most likely path is one that looks a lot like 2016, though probably with a slimmer EV margin as there's a good chance in that scenario he only wins part of the Blue Wall. We all know what the man's coalition looks like and that it's a minority coalition with a hard ceiling of support.
My suspicion is that if Trump can win the PV for the 49 states ex-CA, as he did in 2016, he's a strong favorite to win the election, and if not, he loses. But winning the 50-state PV is almost entirely off the table at this point; he maybe had a decent chance against Biden but still under 50%.
This is another point that Nate Silver indicates too-low confidence on though. I haven't seen him give PV probabilities for a while, but I believe they've been too high for Trump when he's stated them, even if they're lower than the betting markets.