The 2008.PRES.OBAMA Intrade contract now trades at 51.5, whereas the 2008.PRES.McCAIN Intrade contract is currently trading at 47.8 (compared with 51.7 and 47.7 respectively as reported on yesterday’s update).

Although the overall contract prices didn’t move very much, the state-by-state contracts imply that Mr. Obama currently holds a 273-227 “lead” over Mr. McCain (based upon my cutoff price point of 55 for allocating Electoral College votes). Since yesterday, Colorado (9 Electoral College votes) has moved into Obama’s column, whereas Virginia (13 Electoral College votes) has re-entered “swing” state status, joining Nevada (5 Electoral College votes) and Ohio (20 Electoral College votes) as the “swing” states du jour.

Addendum: September 19, 2008 Electoral College Vote allocation

Barack Obama (273): California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Iowa (7), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (15), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (11), and Wisconsin (10)

John McCain (227): Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Arkansas (6), Florida (27), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Missouri (11), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), West Virginia (5), and Wyoming (3)

Although Nate Silver’s PECOTA model (see FiveThirtyEight) continues to show a 288 to 250 Electoral College advantage for John McCain over Barack Obama, the “trend” begun yesterday continues today; i.e., 2008.PRES.OBAMA is rallying while 2008.PRES.McCAIN is selling off. Specifically, the 2008.PRES.OBAMA Intrade contract now trades at 51.7, whereas the 2008.PRES.McCAIN Intrade contract is currently trading at 47.7 (compared with 50.7 and 48.6 respectively as reported on yesterday’s update). The pundits claim that that the slippage is due to McCain’s comments earlier this week to the effect that he believed that the “…fundamentals of the economy are strong”; with financial markets volatility particularly high this week, Mr. Obama apparently turned these comments into a marginal political advantage.

Looking at the state-by-state contracts, it appears (based upon my cutoff price point of 55 for allocating Electoral College votes) that Mr. Obama currently holds a 264-240 lead over Mr. McCain. Since yesterday, Ohio (20 Electoral College votes) has moved into the “swing” state category, whereas Virginia (13 Electoral College votes) has moved back into McCain’s column. This leaves Nevada (5 Electoral College votes), Colorado (9 Electoral College votes), and Ohio (20 Electoral College votes) as the “swing” states du jour.

Addendum: September 18, 2008 Electoral College Vote allocation

Barack Obama (264): California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Iowa (7), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (15), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (11), and Wisconsin (10)

John McCain (240): Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Arkansas (6), Florida (27), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Missouri (11), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), Virginia (13), West Virginia (5), and Wyoming (3)

Although Nate Silver’s PECOTA model (see FiveThirtyEight) continues to indicate a 288 to 250 Electoral College advantage for John McCain over Barack Obama, today there has been a shift in the prediction markets data which now appear to convey a marginal advantage to Mr. Obama. Specifically, the 2008.PRES.OBAMA Intrade contract has rallied 1.8 points and is now trading at 50.7, wheras the 2008.PRES.McCAIN Intrade contract has sold off 1.9 points and is currently trading at 48.6.

Looking at the state-by-state contracts, it appears (based upon my cutoff price point of 55 for allocating Electoral College votes) that Mr. Obama currently holds a 264-247 lead over Mr. McCain, with Nevada (5 Electoral College votes), Virginia (13 Electoral College votes), and Colorado (9 Electoral College votes) representing “swing” states. Based upon yesterday’s prices, Nevada and Virginia were being counted as McCain states, but both NEVADA.REP and VIRGINIA.REP have sold off enough that they now count as swing states.

The big change today is in the price of the NEVADA.DEM contract; it is currently trading for 58.3, compared with only 45 yesterday. Considering how poorly the U.S. stock market performed today, in retrospect I would have been smart to have shorted the US stock market and gone long in 2008.PRES.OBAMA yesterday, but of course hindsight is always superior to foresight! However, since NEVADA.REP is trading for 50, it is still premature (based upon the arbitrary algorithm that I have selected) to “award” Mr. Obama with Nevada’s 5 Electoral College votes (note: since the prices reported by Intrade are not necessarily synchronous, it is possible for the sum of the .DEM and .REP state contract prices to exceed (or be less than) 100 at any given point in time).

Addendum: September 17, 2008 Electoral College Vote allocation

Barack Obama (264): California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Iowa (7), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (15), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (11), and Wisconsin (10)

John McCain (247): Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Arkansas (6), Florida (27), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Missouri (11), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3), Ohio (20), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), West Virginia (5), and Wyoming (3)

Tonight, (at 8:10 p.m. Central time), the McCain Intrade contract (2008.PRES.McCAIN) is trading at 52.5, whereas the Obama Intrade contract (2008.PRES.OBAMA) is trading at 47.1; 2008.PRES.McCAIN is 1 point higher than it was the last time I posted a blog entry about the election (on Saturday, September 12), whereas 2008.PRES.OBAMA is .9 points lower.

Examining the state-by-state contracts, I find that by using a cutoff price point of 55 for allocating Electoral College votes, that this continues to “give” Barack Obama 264 Electoral College votes and John McCain 265 Electoral College votes. However, I couldn’t help but notice that many of the bid-ask-last price quotes and volume statistics for the various state-by-state contracts haven’t budged since Friday, so apparently there hasn’t been much investor interest in these contracts this weekend!

Turning our attention next to Nate Silver’s PECOTA model (see FiveThirtyEight), Mr. Silver’s model now has McCain winning the Electoral vote by a margin of 289 to 249.

As of 4:40 p.m. Central time today, the McCain Intrade contract (2008.PRES.McCAIN) is trading at 51.5, which is 1 point up from yesterday’s close of 50.5, whereas the Obama Intrade contract (2008.PRES.OBAMA) is trading at 48, which is .4 points down from yesterday’s close of 48.4.

Examining the state-by-state contracts, I find that by using a cutoff price point of 55 for allocating Electoral College votes, that this currently gives Barack Obama 264 Electoral College votes and John McCain 265 Electoral College votes. Basically, the story today on a state-by-state is the same as it was yesterday; out of the 102 total contracts (Democratic and Republican) offered (for the 50 states and the District of Columbia), only the two Colorado contracts (COLORADO.DEM and COLORADO.REP) remain within my arbitrarily defined “swing state” price interval, since the last trades on these contracts were 52 and 48 respectively.

I like to compare the prediction market data with Nate Silver’s PECOTA model which is published on the FiveThirtyEight website. Today (for the first time), Mr. Silver’s model has McCain winning the Electoral vote by a margin of 277 to 261.

Addendum: September 12, 2008 Electoral College Vote allocation

John McCain (265): Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Arkansas (6), Florida (27), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Missouri (11), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), Nevada (5), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3), Ohio (20), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), Virginia (13), West Virginia (5), and Wyoming (3)

Barack Obama (264): California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Iowa (7), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (15), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (11), and Wisconsin (10)

As of 3:10 p.m. Central time today, the McCain Intrade contract (2008.PRES.McCAIN) is trading at 51.5, which is 1.7 points up from yesterday’s close of 49.8, whereas the Obama Intrade contract (2008.PRES.OBAMA) is trading at 47.7, which is 1.2 points up from yesterday’s close of 48.9.

Examining the state-by-state contracts, I find that by using a cutoff price point of 55 for allocating Electoral College votes, that this currently gives Barack Obama 264 Electoral College votes and John McCain 265 Electoral College votes. Since yesterday, the VIRGINIA.REP and NEVADA.REP have both rallied by roughly 5 points (to 60 and 59.9 respectively), while the NEWHAMPSHIRE.DEM has rallied 8 points to 65, so it would appear that Virginia and Nevada are moving more solidly to McCain’s advantage, whereas New Hampshire is moving even more in Obama’s direction. Out of the 102 total contracts (Democratic and Republican) offered (for the 50 states and the District of Columbia), only the two Colorado contracts (COLORADO.DEM and COLORADO.REP) remain within my arbitrarily defined “swing state” price interval, since the last trades on these contracts were 55 and 48 respectively. Other things equal, at this point it appears that Colorado is absolutely pivotal, since its 9 Electoral College votes could put either candidate over the 270 vote total required to win the presidential election.

Finally, for what it’s worth, Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight currently puts the Electoral Vote for Obama and McCain at 270 versus 268, which shows once again that a simple, cursory inspection of state-by-state prediction market prices produces a result which is qualitatively quite similar to the result obtained by Mr. Silver’s much more sophisticated PECOTA model.

Addendum: September 11, 2008 Electoral College Vote allocation

John McCain (265): Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Arkansas (6), Florida (27), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Missouri (11), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), Nevada (5), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3), Ohio (20), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), Virginia (13), West Virginia (5), and Wyoming (3)

Barack Obama (264): California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Iowa (7), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (15), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (11), and Wisconsin (10)