I track the futures trading markets rather than polls because people are betting on outcomes with real money, and therefor stand to make (or lose) real money. That clears out the fanboys and pretenders. Of the predicting markets, I tend to look at IEM (Iowa Electronic Markets) because they have the history and larger volume of trades. So when I see “Dem to win White House” closing at $0.75, I’m impressed. [$0.75 means that people are buying and trading “Futures Contracts” called “Dem to win White House” for $0.75. If they hold onto them, those contracts will pay off $1.00 if/when that outcome happens. The more likely that outcome becomes, the close the trading price gets to $1.00]
As a point of comparison, at on this day in 2008, “Dem to win White House” closed at $0.60.
