Polls seem to indicate that Trump has a massive lead in the Republican primary, far ahead of Cruz who is far ahead of Rubio. UK Bookmakers put him slightly behind Rubio, and slightly ahead of Cruz. Why the discrepancy?
For that matter—that’s the odds of him being the Republican candidate. For the primaries, they put him ahead of Rubio for both the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary. Does winning the primaries not make him the Republican party candidate? Are there other primaries that aren’t being bet on? Do they think his performance in NH and IA is somehow anti-correlated?
I’m kind of hoping that the bookmakers are offering free money here, but that seems unlikely on priors.
Winning two primaries does not make him the Republican party candidate. The idea is that while Trump has 40% at the moment that means he has more than any other candidate but as time goes on other candidates drop out and the 60% that don’t vote for Trump at the moment still won’t vote for Trump but for somebody else.
Apart from that other people start to understand Trump and how to respond to him as time goes on and they think that as time goes on the establishment candidate Marco Rubio will benefit from that.
This is plausible, thanks. Followup question for the first part—why do bookmakers favor Rubio over Cruz? Cruz has advantage in polls and IA (30× difference between their odds), but disadvantage in NH (4× difference). I could see “non-Trump voters will tend to go to anyone except Trump when their candidate drops out”, but “will tend to go to Rubio” seems rather more specific.
And the establishment have superdelegates who cast votes in National Conventions and those 5-10 percent of total delegates would be enough to choose the winner in otherwise close races.
There’s a lot of reasons to think that national polling is not predictive of a primary race
First, the relevant decisions are made state-by-state.
Second, the sampling issue for primary voters is much harder that for general election voters. Among other reasons, people are paying a lot less attention, so people who care strongly are probably more over-represented than is typical.
Does winning the [Iowa and New Hampshire] primaries not make him the Republican party candidate? Are there other primaries that aren’t being bet on?
Yes to your second question. Also, winning one or both of the early primaries is not a strong predictor of who will be nominated in contested primaries.
Polls seem to indicate that Trump has a massive lead in the Republican primary, far ahead of Cruz who is far ahead of Rubio. UK Bookmakers put him slightly behind Rubio, and slightly ahead of Cruz. Why the discrepancy?
For that matter—that’s the odds of him being the Republican candidate. For the primaries, they put him ahead of Rubio for both the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary. Does winning the primaries not make him the Republican party candidate? Are there other primaries that aren’t being bet on? Do they think his performance in NH and IA is somehow anti-correlated?
I’m kind of hoping that the bookmakers are offering free money here, but that seems unlikely on priors.
Winning two primaries does not make him the Republican party candidate. The idea is that while Trump has 40% at the moment that means he has more than any other candidate but as time goes on other candidates drop out and the 60% that don’t vote for Trump at the moment still won’t vote for Trump but for somebody else.
Apart from that other people start to understand Trump and how to respond to him as time goes on and they think that as time goes on the establishment candidate Marco Rubio will benefit from that.
This is plausible, thanks. Followup question for the first part—why do bookmakers favor Rubio over Cruz? Cruz has advantage in polls and IA (30× difference between their odds), but disadvantage in NH (4× difference). I could see “non-Trump voters will tend to go to anyone except Trump when their candidate drops out”, but “will tend to go to Rubio” seems rather more specific.
Rubio has more support of the Republican establishment.
And the establishment have superdelegates who cast votes in National Conventions and those 5-10 percent of total delegates would be enough to choose the winner in otherwise close races.
There’s a lot of reasons to think that national polling is not predictive of a primary race
First, the relevant decisions are made state-by-state.
Second, the sampling issue for primary voters is much harder that for general election voters. Among other reasons, people are paying a lot less attention, so people who care strongly are probably more over-represented than is typical.
Yes to your second question. Also, winning one or both of the early primaries is not a strong predictor of who will be nominated in contested primaries.