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from the you-pay-your-money-and-you-take-your-chances dept.
Self-styled political outsiders Donald Trump (a billionaire businessman) and Ben Carson (a former neurosurgeon) are the frontrunners for the 2016 GOP nomination for the US Presidency, according to the Real Clear Politics average of five major polls conducted between October 10-18, 2015: Trump's 27 pct and Carson's 21 pct are far ahead of the next tier, which consists of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (9 percent), Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (8 pct) and former Florida Gov Jeb Bush (7 pct).
The betting markets view the race differently. Rubio has recently taken over as front-runner in most of the political books and prediction markets, replacing Bush, who is now in second place. This duo is followed by Trump, and then (in varying order) Carson, Cruz, and former businesswoman Carly Fiorina. The remaining nine candidates who have participated in at least one televised GOP debate, and who have not dropped out, are given long odds, typically between 15-1 and 100-1.
Here is the current betting line from Ladbrokes, a London-based bookmaker. For those who enjoy staring at spreadsheets, here is the rollup of online bookmakers and prediction markets.
A few books admit the possibility that a presently-undeclared candidate such as Mitt Romney or Michael Bloomberg could win the GOP nomination, perhaps to break a voting deadlock at the convention; they are given long odds.
Betting on political elections is prohibited in the USA, but overseas bettors aren't subject to such puritanical restrictions. A UK journalist, commenting on the betting action over who would be the country's prime minister after the upcoming general election, explained why the betting markets are often a more reliable guide than the pollsters. Incidentally, they turned out to be right in the case discussed in the article; incumbent David Cameron retained the office after the Conservatives won enough seats in Parliament to assemble a working majority.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 26 2015, @02:55PM
The incumbent party candidates tend to compare themselves to the dude in office, either positively or negatively, to raise money. The dude in office is the lightning rod they all revolve around because, lets face it, he won last time, so you want to position yourself as the dude who won plus a little bit better. Hey you guys who gave the last winner $1M, look at me I'm just him with different demographics, I agree with everything he did that turned out to work and disagree with everything he did that turned out not to work, now toss some of that money over here just like you purchased him last time!
The non-incumbent party candidates have no incumbent lightning rod, so they hoover up as many extremists as possible to get PAC money and nomination votes, at which point they ignore them and rush to the center at the speed of a near sonic boom. If they had a lightning rod they'd beta orbit the lightning rod, but then by definition they'd be the incumbent party as per above and it would be the other guys flirting with extremists and it would be all about who's a better friend to the SPLC rather than who's a better friend to the NRA or whatever.
Its a story old as the hills and the -R or -D only apply as per incumbency (is that a word?) status. Aside from that yeah your observations are mostly accurate they're following the stage rules just like the last zillion elections. With the merger of .com and .gov some time ago, dudes who mostly played the .com team are hardly inexperienced with the .gov side. Also Fiorina is the token woman, if the -D put up a woman as nominee or VP then she's in. She's a total loser and would hopefully lose, but she's guaranteed in, so we're stuck with her stinking up the place until the -D side announces nominee and veep, assuming they don't pick yet another member of the Clinton crime family, in which case we're stuck with her as veep.
Its an unusually weak slate of candidates. Nobody with leadership skill wants the job, so you're left with riff raff on both sides. Must be El Nino or global warming or something. You'd think that somewhere out there, on both sides, there would be better qualified candidates, perhaps a dogcatcher or a small town mayor or owner of a hot dog push cart.