Categories:
Economic Methods
Politics and Economics
Since Elizabeth Warren has announced her Presidential candidacy, my 2017 Warren bet with my friend Ben Haller has officially activated. He’s betting $50 against my $100 that she wins the Presidency. When we made the bet, betting markets put her odds at 7.9%, but now they’re down to a measly 3.1%.
Of course, back in 2015 I probably would have given Trump about a 3.1% of winning, too…
READER COMMENTS
Mark Bahner
Feb 26 2019 at 2:37pm
I don’t want to bet on “unimportant” things like this, but what would your bet be on Trump winning a second term?
I count my assuring my family that there was absolutely no way Trump could possibly win a first term as one of my spectacularly bad predictions. (Possibly second only to the prediction–I think circa 2003, when gold was about $500 an ounce–that gold would shortly fall back below $400 and continue downward, since I viewed gold as a commodity.)
Mark Z
Feb 26 2019 at 5:31pm
If we start (reasonably, I think) from giving Trump fairly close to 50% chance of winning re-election, then for this bet to be a good one on Haller’s part, Warren needs to have ~2/3 chance of winning the primary. I don’t think one can remotely justify that. I don’t even think it’s sensible to give her nearly a 1/3 chance of winning the primary. Even if one thinks the polls putting Sanders and Harris well above her are underrating her, just the fact that the field is so crowded makes the expected outcome much more variable and dependent on minor circumstances like who has an off-day campaigning in Iowa and who manages to get momentum early on. I don’t see how one can justify giving any one Dem candidate anywhere close to that high a chance this soon. I think Haller is swinging for the fences here.
Kevin Dick
Feb 26 2019 at 9:19pm
@Mark Z. If you think Trump has close to a 50% chance, you should place a bet at Betfair. Current market prices imply only a 32% chance.
https://electionbettingodds.com/
Billy Kaubashine
Feb 27 2019 at 11:10am
I voted Libertarian last time because I believed the polls that said Hillary would win and hoped to send my Republican a party a message that they shouldn’t nominate a buffoon like Trump and expect success.
That said, if the election were today I would vote for Trump’s reelection over any of the declared Democrats. He’s done a far better job than I would have predicted.
Mark Bahner
Feb 27 2019 at 3:17pm
After Trump was elected President, Michael Cohen has stated under oath that Donald Trump’s “lawyers” reviewed Cohen’s Congressional testimony in which Cohen lied to Congress about the timing of Trump’s business dealings in Russia.
So that means almost certainly that Trump knew Cohen was going to lie to Congress. And even if Trump didn’t know Cohen was going to lie to Congress, Trump absolutely knew Cohen had lied to Congress, but Trump did nothing.
Would you vote for Trump even knowing he had approved of his personal lawyer committing perjury (lying under oath to Congress)? Or at minimum that Trump had done absolutely nothing about his personal lawyer committing perjury?
Mark Z
Feb 27 2019 at 7:08pm
The salient question here is “compared to what?” Would I rather have a perjurer in the White House, or a socialist in the White House? The former, without hesitation. Frankly, the personal amorality of the president matters less to me than the consequences of public policy (especially with Trump less likely to have a compliant congress than the Democratic candidate). C.S. Lewis’s remark about robber baron’s vs. omnipotent moral busybodies comes to mind.
Mark Bahner
Feb 27 2019 at 10:45pm
Indeed. I guess that’s why it’s easy for me. I always vote Libertarian. (I think Gary Johnson would have been a particularly good president.)
Personally, I’d have to do more research to answer. I haven’t really followed what Bernie Sanders says/thinks, for example. But at this point, just about anyone looks better than Trump to me.
P.S. For example, if someone had held a gun to my head at the polling booth and said I had to vote for Trump or Clinton, even though I think Clinton would have been a terrible president, I would have voted for her. (I don’t consider her to be a socialist so perhaps the comparison is not a good one.)
Robert EV
Mar 1 2019 at 11:52am
Billy, Mark, and Mark.
Which 2020 presidential candidate do you think Congress will step in to moderate?
So far the Republican congress hasn’t done much to moderate Trump (we’ll see about the “national emergency”).
I voted for Bernie in the 2016 Democrat primary* with the expectation that even a Democrat congress would moderate, or outright shoot down, some of his policies.
With people like Feinstein still major players in the democrat wing of Congress I expect this to remain true with whoever is the Democrat nominee. I don’t expect this from the Republicans if Trump is elected to a second term.
* – Green party in the general because it’s the only party that gives a crap about individual empowerment to make decisions disintermediated from capital and wealth.
Robert EV
Mar 1 2019 at 11:56am
“disintermediated from capital and wealth” and political clout.
Mark Z
Mar 1 2019 at 3:51pm
Given that Democrats are more likely to win both houses in 2020 than Republicans, Congress will more likely moderate Trump. Moreover, most Democratic candidates (who are mostly senators) have already signed on not only to Medicare for all but also the GND (and in time reparations for slavery may be added to that list), so the emerging Democratic consensus in congress may not be far behind the extreme positions of whoever manages to win the nomination.
And judging from the past two years, I think the output of a Trump + a GOP Congress is probably less harmful that what I expect from Sanders + a dem Congress (judicial appointments alone affect the calculation considerably) and likely even Harris or Warren + Dem Congress. Their best hope is if Biden runs, which I think is unlikely.
Mark Bahner
Mar 1 2019 at 9:58pm
If you’ve seen my previous comments, I have a pretty bad record for predicting political developments. Still that’s never stopped me from predictions, so: 1) Democrats hold the House, 2) Republicans lose seats in the Senate…50/50 chance of them losing their majority. 3) Donald Trump is unfortunately renominated, and 4) He runs against…at this point electionbettingodds.com shows the top 3 as Harris, Sanders, and O’Rourke.
I think O’Rourke has the best chance of beating Trump, but unfortunately I don’t think he has a better-than-50 percent chance of beating Trump…though it’s very early.
With Trump as President and Democrats controlling the house and the Senate extremely close, I think Congress hopefully be able to moderate.
P.S. From looking at the electionbettingodds site, I really like Mark Cuban. He’s impressed me on Shark Tank. The problem is I’m not sure he’d beat Trump as a Republican, and I don’t think Cuban would get nominated as a Democrat. (Even though I think he’d absolutely crush Donald Trump in the general election, if Cuban was the Democratic nominee.) I think Cuban and the Congress–whatever the makeup of Congress–would moderate each other.
Robert EV
Mar 2 2019 at 12:58pm
Okay, thanks. You are betting that way, just with different preferences and priorities.
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