We won’t know anything for sure until Tuesday night, but here’s the latest update from the Intrade prediction markets, where investors are currently banking on the same outcome everybody was already expecting (as of 9:55am in New York):
The second market, for the Senate, has been erratic in the last day or so. Politico reported that as of this morning Intrade was predicting only a 46.7 per cent chance that Democrats would hold.
But as you can see from this next chart, the uncertainty demonstrated by this market around whether the Democrats will hang on to the Senate is nothing new — the market has been as low as 45 and as high as 62 in just the last month.
So best not to read too much into the charts — we just wanted to give you an update.
And it’s only one forecast. Nate Silver, whose analysis is always worth listening closely to, gives the Republicans a much smaller chance of taking the Senate — though he does think they have a shot at getting 49 seats, leaving the Democrats with the slimmest of majorities:
While Republicans retain a plausible path toward taking control of the Senate on Tuesday night, it would involve their winning at least two seats in which they appear to be underdogs, while simultaneously avoiding upsets in several other races in which they are narrowly favored. Unless the Republicans have a significant wind at their backs and are overperforming in most parts of the country, their chances of doing so are slim. …
On the basis of these races, we have Republican chances of winning the Senate on Tuesday at just 7 percent, their lowest figure of the year.
However, Republicans have roughly even odds of finishing the night with at least 49 Senators, in which case they could conceivably lobby Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut to join their party at some point after the election.
Related links:
Elections and the markets: a primer – FT Alphaville
Elections and the markets, avoid silly charts edition – FT Alphaville