VOTE 24

AUTHOR: Star Sports Content

VOTE 24: America Decides

America has re-elected Donald Trump and it wasn’t even close, writes WILLIAM KEDJANYI.

The President Elect was given the race at around 11am UK time, but given the direction of travel overnight he had it won by the early hours, and even with four states left to declare including battlegrounds in Arizona and Nevada, he’s miles ahead of Kamala Harris.

With much of the dust having settled, here’s some thoughts and reflections, although before that I want to thank some of the people who have made this year’s coverage possible.

A huge hand to Ben Keith, David Stewart, Joe Citrone, Lewis Williams, John Brackenridge, Kit Gilmore, Rob Ellis, Edward Imi, Bill Esdaile, Adrian Smith, Nick Luck, Neil Channing, Johnathan Pollinger, Paul Krishnamurty, Zeus O’Dea, Barnaby Nerbka, Ranjan Balakumran, Luke Chisholm, Will Barber-Taylor and so many more.

🗳️ Election Reflections

Here are some thoughts, 24 hours on. I’ll probably add to this, but for now this is on my mind:

If you’re a Democrat, there’s no one quick fix for this result. The margin between the two is so big that it cannot be put down to one group by itself, whether that be those who didn’t support Harris based on Israel/Gaza, those who didn’t turnout, immigrant groups (more on this later), not picking Josh Shapiro, or any other factor. This clearly runs deep.

The Trump campaign’s strategy of speaking to younger men directly was inspired. Trump’s performance with men was the bedrock of his victory but a key difference was the assimilation of non-white men of a young age into the Republican voter coalition, one which directly hurt Democrat chances. This is a growing problem for the Democrats – whilst younger people may not be the most reliable bae for turnout, if Republicans are able to grab them at Gen Z age, they could quickly become a core demographic for the GOP that’s tough to shift. It’s interesting to note that an estimate from CIRCLE, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, suggested that youth turnout jumped 11 points from 2016 to 2020. Was it the youth that did it? (no).

Indeed, the strategic messages of the Trump campaign have worked, even if their candidate hasn’t always followed them with total disclipline. A relentless focus on the economy was obvious but the way the GOP set the narrative over the economy helped them set a platform that gave voters a bottom line; Were they better off than they were four years ago? The answer, evidently for many, was no.

This continued also with the theme of border security, allowing for a dual attack to which the Democrats often struggled to find an answer.

I am very much into vibes territory here, but did the Democrats over-focus on Trump? The late switch from Biden from Harris obviously complicated things here but how much policy did we see? Announcements late in the campaign felt rushed and clearly didn’t stem the flow of black (male) and Latino voters to Trump.

Arguably the biggest factor in western elections is the incumbency anchor. This result is the latest in a long string of failures for current leaders who have been in place whilst inflation has surged post COVID. Rob Ford has summed up the results below and they do not make for pretty reading:

New media is here to stay as a force in elections – not just in the US, but worldwide – and the Democratic party needs to be quick to create their own channels or embrace successful ones. Trump’s strategy of long sitdowns with streamers and podcasters aimed at young men not only allowed him to reach those groups but do so without the sort of pushback that mainstream interviews or debates would have seen.

Fundamentals were the key. In September, Gallup found that more Americans are identifying with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party – for the first time ever whilst respondents showed greater confidence in the GOP’s handling of issues voters consider important — namely, the economy and inflation, immigration, and government – than the Democrats by five points. The GOP had a six point lead on the economy with Gallup – and the party which has held an advantage on this question in the past has won 12 out of 16 presidential election before this one, a record that now reads 13 ouf of 17.

Are the polls the best way to read the race? Many will be quick to dismiss them but the average polling error of around 3 points is hardly exceptional – indeed within the margin of error – and ‘herding’ (where groups of pollsters supposedly all called a dead even race, so as not to be singled out) may well have been a bigger issue.

However, with such narrow margins having such big effects – Trump is nationally winning by 3.4% at the moment but has effectively landslided Kamala by the standards of his three elections – punters have effectively been forced to make a judgement call as to which candidate would be the benefit of the ‘miss’, which was Trump once again.

Can the pollsters find GOP voters? Trump’s three elections have seen him outperform his polls whilst both sets of midterms have seen pollsters improve their track record compared with the general elections. The Trump effect seems to be very real – will poll performance revert to the mean in 2026 and beyond?

According to the rules, this is Trump’s last presidential election. The rules, that is. Presuming that he steps aside after the next four years (again, is this something you’d want to take a short price about?), where does the GOP go from here?

Vice President-Elect JD Vance looks the obvious choice – indeed early quotes of 7/2 look big – but Trump’s own story proves the viability of celebrity candidates in the mold of Reagan and it would be no surprise to see Donald Junior playing a leading role in the administration. The Republicans seem secure in their base but the Trump effect has been real – can the GOP keep the benefit of that bounce?

This is Trumpworld, and we’re all living in it. Trump’s first term was very much a story of raging impulses against institutions and some senior staff who fought back against him. That will not be the case this time. Expect anything and everything, apart from resistance.

What will that lead to? The effects will be pronounced for America and the rest of the world. It will also be massive for both parties. The ‘challenger’ has won the last three presidential elections and defending a record has become increasingly harder.

Who gets into a Trump cabinet? Are the days of fluoride in the water numbered? Will we see a Milei style cutting of government headcount? Are taxes a thing of the past? Any on these decisions will have long lasting effects that could stay with the GOP for a long while.

Money still matters, but not in the way you think. This is the second time Trump has beaten a billion dollar campaign and whilst we have to acknowledge the huge amounts of private PAC finance he receives (see Elon Musk), campaign finance at a presidential level may not be a be all end and all.

Get Out The…. X? One of the major themes of the last week was the contrast in get Out The Vote strategies. Democrats, aided by tons of cash, hit hundreds of thousands of door knocks with 807,000 in Pennsylvania, 215,000 in Wisconsin and 256,000 in Michigan.

Republicans – led by Elon Musk’s American superPAC – hit big numbers in Pennsylvania and elsewhere but arguably had the strongest presence online compared with on the ground, and still managed a sweep of the battleground states. Should we look to air wars more next time round? And which air wars in particular? For now the TV ad battle is king, but alternative platforms are already growing fast.

📊 The Action Begins:

We have real data! Exit polls are out and here’s what I make of them:

And here’s notes from Adrian Smith (@lovejoyantiques):

“As we get toward midnight UK time we aren’t a great deal further forward than we were this morning. Polls are still open, so nothing is really clear at the moment.

The indications are that turnout will be high, but we do not yet have a really clear understanding of who is voting, where and why – so we can’t really infer who benefits from record breaking turnout yet. If you backed the overs on turnout or the +80m line on either Trump or better Harris then you’ve probably got a winner in the bank already.

There have been some signs of stress from the Trump campaign, with the main man himself making baseless accusations of large-scale voter fraud in Pennsylvania, supported by his surrogates – but that may just be how they roll.

Betting markets in general have just bobbed around a bit. Nobody at all feels that they have a clear handle on this yet.

Polls start closing soon, that’s when we’ll see what that turnout represents”

Guide to the Night:

📊 Exit Polls: Exit polls in the UK provide a projection of the final result as soon as polls close – and they are famously accurate – but American ones are very different because than predicting the result, they give an insight into people’s priorities and opinions – and later, into how different demographic groups voted.

Pollsters produce these by combining election-day interviews with telephone polling both nationally and in the seven swing states.

Remember: There is a big difference between when the polls close and when the result for a state is known, and different states count at different speeds, so be careful what information is informing your bets.
Remember, there is a big difference between when the polls close and when the result for a state is known, and different states count at different speeds, so be careful what information is informing your bets.

🗳️ 10pm: The first exit poll data batches will be released. This will give a flavour of the electorate and how they’ve done on the day.

🗳️ Midnight: Polls close in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia. Georgia is key – Joe Biden won it by the narrowest of margins in 2020

🗳️ 12:30am: Polls close in North Carolina, and Ohio. The race for North Carolina’s Governorship has been closely followed, with Democratic State Attorney General Josh Stein against Trump-backed candidate Mark Robinson, who has been beset by the revelations that he spent a large amount of time on porn message boards posting racist messages.

🗳️ 1:30am: Polls close in Pennsylvania, the most crucial swing state with 19 electoral college votes. More exit poll data will also be released – which could give key clues as to which pollsters have managed to size up the electorate correctly.

🗳️ 2am: Polls close in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada – all states of interest.

🗳️ 4am: Polls close in the last US mainland states. By this time we will have an idea of how things are going – especially if the race isn’t as close as the polls and models suggest. However, things are unlikely to be done just yet. In 2020 we only received projections for Pennsylvania and Nevada four days after election day, and in Arizona it took an entire week.

With a huge amount of mail in voting once again, results could take just as long this time – especially in what’s seen as a neck and neck race.

How to play it, by Adrian Smith (@lovejoyantiques):

Those familiar with UK election coverage will note that in the early stages of the evening it can sometimes be difficult for the news channel to fill the time, because not much of substance is happening. The same thing happens in the US, and it is easy to get distracted by ‘Key Race Alerts’ which are nothing of the sort. In the early stages, the reporting of small and therefore fast-counting counties gets disproportionate coverage; know which information is important and which is not.

Preparation is seldom wasted. If you intend to trade positions overnight, plan in advance which media sources and social media channels will be your database; given the frenzied nature of the campaign so far, we can only expect avalanches of bad and indifferent information, especially on socials. Also plan in advance which markets you want to be involved in; there’s a lot going on beyond the ‘Big One’ and plenty of the best value is down the ballot. Be organized and disciplined and you put yourself in the best possible position to win.

Evening Update:

Whilst I am loathe to take too much of an early signal from anything before 1-2am this evening, here are a few thoughts at 6pm GMT (British time, for those of you reading this elsewhere).

🗳️ Turnout looks set to be high. There are reports from Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania of big numbers already with a long time until the polls close. With both sides importing their supporters to get to the polls, it’s hard to know who it favours – some have suggested Democrats will be boosted but it’s impossible to know for sure.

⏰ We can expect a long night. 38 million Americans have mailed in their postal votes – that’s well down on 2020 when 65.7 million people voted by mail, but it’s up on 33 million in 2020 and a tight race is expected particularly in swing states. You may not – key word *may* – know who wins the race overnight.

🗳️ To add to this, voting has been extended in Cambria county, Pennsylvania, for an extra two hours, giving voters an extended time to return to cast their votes after a software malfunction earlier in the day, a court has ruled. (so the Guardian liveblog tells me).

There’s also the case of the Balance of Power overall. Rep. Suzan DelBene, who leads the House Democrats’ campaign operation, told CNN on Tuesday that it could take a week or more before control of the House is officially determined – about as long as it was for the midterms in 2022.

🗳️ Don’t forget the other races and the questions on the ballot. Tens of millions of voters in Montana, Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New York and South Dakota will be asked how their state should regulate abortion.

📈 📉 Don’t overestimate market moves or signals. The punting populace is still in the Trump camp – 75% of bets with Star in the last 24 hours have been for Trump, driven by our top price offer (which is still available, so roll up, roll up). However, the big amounts are more even – there’s plenty of people willing to put their money where their mouth is for both candidates. In the US, even signs of high turnout haven’t moved the need much with Polymarket or Kalashi!

Speak to you later tonight!

🚨 BIG BET ALERT!

Just as soon as we get a big bet for Trump, someone is right in on Kamala!

🚨 BIG BET ALERT!

We said we’d take Trump on, and one punter has been very true to their word…

🚨 BIG BET ALERT!

We’ve had a massive wager on Kamala Harris! Here’s a video update below:

🗳️ In The House

It isn’t all about the presidency – Friend of the blog Adrian Smith has very kindly previewed key Senate and House races that you should be on the lookout for tonight.

Throughout the night there will be a range of Senate and House races that I will keep an eye on. Some I want to bet on directly, some I am using as yardsticks to try and gauge voting trends; and some I am hoping through a late-night pick-me-up watching the extremes of US politics.

In the early stages of the evening my main focus will be on looking at the turnout figures. The Eastern Seaboard is a huge population centre, and will give data first; that will narrow down overall turnout projections if you move quickly enough: Star Sports are up with 4/6 for Harris to breach 80 million popular votes and 8/11 about Trump to do the same; those figures suggest records being broken, and those first states are going to give you a key marker on how realistic it is.

For the Senate, I am watching two races outside the key swing states. The first is Florida, where incumbent Rick Scott looks like he is in cruise control, with the polls giving leads of five points and more. However, as Florida is not a swing state, we have a bit less data than we do for others, and there are a couple of things that interest me. First, Florida has a lot of Hispanic immigrants, and it strikes me that the calamitous remarks about Puerto Rico from a Trump surrogate at the Madison Square Garden rally will have made a mark here. Moreover, Florida is home to a lot of retiree female voters. Over the weekend we had some eye-catching polls that were positive for Harris and suggested that female voters, and particularly older females, were breaking heavily for Harris. I would be stunned out of my boots if Scott loses, and I would not go in for the 11/1 available with Star Sports, but if the race looks tighter than anticipated, then that is a big signal about the national result for me.

The second state that interests me is Montana; a big sky western state where the incumbent Democrat Jon Tester looks handily beaten by Republican former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy. However, Montana is a small state much more sparsely polled at the Senate level; it has a much smaller population than the big swing states and Tester is well liked and respected. With that being the case, you can infer a lot more variance than with other results. It’s another where I may not bet directly but it will be key information in my wider thinking.

I have had bets on Ohio, where my long-term view was the old stager, the original populist Sherrod Brown would retain the seat for Democrats. Sherrod has run a smart campaign and has worked very hard to build a coalition of female voters and union members alongside other Democrats. However, it is an uphill battle; Ohio has been reliably red for the last few cycles, and the Vice-Presidential candidate JD Vance is the Junior Senator from there, so he adds heft to what is otherwise an unprepossessing Republican candidate in Bernie Moreno. The polls cannot insert a hair between these guys, but I think Sherrod Brown might just hang on, so the 3/1 available with Star Sports is appealing.

For the House Races we have a lot fewer polling data to go on, and a lot fewer opportunities to bet directly on the outcome. There, however, a lot of races that can act as a windsock for the major trends in the election. One key trend that I am watching is how the chief architects of the ‘election denial’ campaign in Congress from the last Presidential cycle get on – as a proxy for how well Trump is doing overall.
In the Pennsylvania 10th District, Republican Scott Perry, an ardent election denier, is in a pitched battle with a popular local media personality running for the Democrats, Janelle Stellson. As it’s in the key Pennsylvania swing state, and the demographics of this particular district are slightly different to last time, this could be a real Bellwether. If, as I suspect, the Dems take this one handily then a key swing state is almost certainly there.

In the Washington 3rd District, which will report relatively late in the piece, we have a white rural working-class District which has been reliably Trump in Presidential races.

However, the Congressional seat has been one of the most interesting of recent years. In 2022 there was a brutal Republican primary that resulted in the ouster of the sitting Representative who had voted to impeach Trump; in the General Election, Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez pulled off one of the shockers of the night when she got the better of the election denier Joe Kent. This renewal sees Kent come back for another go, but without a savage primary beforehand. This will be a small window on to how rural whites are breaking; you would have to favour Republicans, but not by much.

The New York 19th District gives us a window into some different trends. It’s a huge district covering a lot of upstate New York, and the sitting Republican Marc Molinaro had built a reputation as one of the most hands-across-the-aisle guys in Washington.

However, this time around he has bought heavily into the Trump anti-immigration narrative. The Dems have this targeted as one of their key gains, and as it is New York it is a rich person’s game; this is the most expensive House race of them all, both sides have been carpet-bombing it with cash and it’s a genuine toss-up. A signal from here early in the night will tell us whether Molinaro’s rightward steps were wise and that is a little piece of the puzzle on Trump’s overall strength.

In the US, there are always a few to keep us entertained – hugely important in a really long betting stint, where you have information flying at you from all sides, and real cash on the line. Take time for a breather. The New Hampshire Second District looks good value for light relief. If you trained an AI model on the West Wing and asked it to generate a fantasy Democratic candidate, Maggie Goodlander is what you would get. Her Republican opponent is Lily Tang Williams. I initially thought she must be some kind of Nashville crossover artist, but she is in fact a Chinese-born firebrand who was a former star of the Libertarian party, and who has a striking debating style. The Dems are now favoured, and any concession speech from Williams will be worth watching.

If we are looking for lively victory speeches, then we must make time for Marjorie Taylor Green. She is a certainty in her Georgia 14th Congressional District, but she is likely to give it out in spades, whatever is happening – there’s probably a good round of crazy bingo to be had on that, but you should stay focused on the real betting.

📊 The Polling Station

We’ve had the last polls of the election, and three have stood out from across the flurry that have been released.

The Selzler Surprise

The first is the Ann Selzer poll from Iowa, which has Harris leading Trump by three points in the state. This is significant for three main reasons. The first is Selzer’s brilliant track record in Iowa (a record of success attributed to her method of letting the data speak for itself and making fewer assumptions about the electorate), as one can see below:

The second is that Trump is behind in any way, shape or form. He won Iowa by 8.2% in 2020 when defeated by Joe Biden, and he won Iowa by 9.4% when beating Hillary Clinton in 2016. The implied national swing here – if replicated either nationally or just across similar states – would have Harris running out an clear victory. It’s also worth noting that the margin of error on the poll is 3.4 points – if the poll is correct the White House goes to Harris.

The third is the notable groups driving the result. The poll shows that the late shift is driven by women — particularly those who are older (65+) or are politically independent – and it also shows Harris cutting Trump’s lead with independent men. The gender gap is playing a huge role already in the election and independent voters will prove key to victory – if they are breaking for Harris late on, then her chances will be hugely enhanced.

However: This is – famous last words – likely to be an outlier given national polls, most of which have the two candidates either tied or with Harris leading by a point or so, and swing state polling has the race too close to call. What it suggests, however, is that Trump is losing support amongst key demographics that could decide the election, and in a particularly red state that Democrats won’t be targeting nearly as much as the Blue Wall or Sun Belt States.

To The Wire

The New York Times and Siena have been tracking this race during the whole campaign and as one of the country’s top-rated pollsters, they obviously have a massive amount of interest in their surveys, especially amongst the swing states. Their final polls were released earlier today:

The polls – all within the margin of error – have Harris ahead in Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin, and Trump leading in Arizona. They are tied in Michigan and Pennsylvania whilst they are essentially tied in Georgia, where Harris leads by a single point.

An electoral map based on the poll results gives Harris 274 electoral votes to 230 for Trump, and this is without assigning the 15 electoral college votes of Michigan and Pennsylvania. Whilst we cannot take the result for granted, it’s likely to provide optimism for Harris backers and supporters, whilst showing a number of routes to 270 for the Vice President.

A positive sign for the Democrats comes in some of the data, as reported by Lisa Lerer and Ruth Igielnik of the New York Times:

“There are signs that late deciders are breaking for Ms. Harris: Among the 8 percent of voters who said they had only recently decided on their vote, she wins the group by 55 percent to 44 percent. (With Election Day nearing, 11 percent of voters remained undecided or persuadable, down from 16 percent about a month ago.)”

“Roughly 40 percent of those surveyed by the Times/Siena poll across the seven states said they had voted. Ms. Harris wins those voters by a margin of eight percentage points, the polls found.”

As Easy as MRP for Kamala?

MRP (multilevel regression with post-stratification) polling – is well known in the UK political community, but less so in America, where the electoral college is King and models tend to take multiple polls into account along with other factors.

YouGov have enjoyed much success with this format in the UK, although it should be remembered that their 2020 projection – like most others – was too confident on Biden (projected 364 electoral college votes to 302 in the actual result, and 53.2% of the popular vote to 51.8%), and that in the UK they and many others were out due to a polling miss against Labour.

This year’s YouGov MRP makes for encouraging reading for Harris, albeit narrowly – and it’s worth noting YouGov’s high rating with FiveThirtyEight too:

Money Talk

This has been an election of big swings in betting. Both US exchanges and fixed odds bookmakers, Star included, have seen wild swings throughout the election at various points – and in the lead-up to election day, the market is tightening once again.

On the much-discussed Polymarket, Donald Trump was trading at 66.9% compared to 33.1% for Harris on the 30th October. At the time of writing, Trump is still favourite – at 55.4% – but Harris is now 44.5%.

A similar shift has occurred on Kalashi, where Trump was trading at 64% to 36% on October 29th but the market now has Trump at 53% to Harris at 47%.

We’ve also seen a move with Star Sports towards Harris – She was 6/4 on the 31st of October with Trump touching a low of 4/7, but the Vice President is now 23/20 (46.1%) whilst Trump is 7/10 (58.82%).

With the market now uber sensitive to late information, further tightening is possible in both fixed odds and across the exchanges – but don’t be surprised if Trump backers, especially those who were happy to drive him to 60%, step in and take what they perceive as value.

💬 It’s been an action-packed week – here’s the latest from John Brackenridge in the Star trading room:

“Whilst we’ve seen a big move in the overall winner market, from the weekend to this morning 80% of bets we’ve laid were away from the 2-way market, and I’m wondering if people have decided to try and seek value elsewhere now.

A good amount of what we saw were people betting the higher bands on Harris or the lower bands on Trump across the various vote percentage/number of votes, or no. of states won which I’m guessing ties in with a general surge in belief from not only the Harris campaign but also the market, especially after promising poll results from not only Ann Selzer but also other A-rated pollsters including Siena.”

Here’s some interesting context from AK Bets on the late money:

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