NEVADA CAUCUS
Will Democrats Burn the Bern
Welcome Back everyone! Here are the latest odds to win the President of the United States this November:
Here are the odds to win the Democratic Nomination:
NEVADA!
Today will be the second black eye in a month for the Democratic Party as they attempt to navigate the Nevada Caucus. Unlike Iowa, which took most by surprised, it is assumed by all that all hell is going to break loose in the Desert. Because of this we do not recommend betting the Nevada Caucus. Bernie should win and if he does not, don’t tell us we didn’t warn you.
Like Sideshow Bob walking stepping on rakes, these State Democratic parties just cannot get out of their way. They have over complicated processes in order to keep their cheeky caucus’ going. Nevada was slated to use the same technology as Iowa to count and report results from caucus sites but abandoned it when the shit hit the fan in Iowa. Now they are relying on Google Forms and have been far from forthcoming with campaigns and the media on how this is going to happen. Despite the party being a dumpster fire, early voter turnout is way up and the failure of the caucus won’t be due to a lack of participation, just local parties getting fleeced by vendors.
While we recommend NOT to bet on the Nevada Caucus, there is still a lot that can be taken out of it that you should take into consideration as bet on future primaries and nomination winner:
Bernie Sanders (–130 to win DNC nomination) - If Bernie does lose, it will because the unions mobilized to beat him, and it should be seen as a rejection of his Medicare of All plan. The Culinary Union, one of the most powerful in the state, has advised their members to vote for who they wish and have published leaflets laying out the case AGAINST Bernie’s Medicaid for All.
What the Culinary Union is doing is not all policy based. With deep ties for former Majority Leader Harry Reid, it is the continuation of the party apparatus trying to derail the Bernie train. However, the Union, like most of the Democratic establishment is afraid to take on Bernie straight on. Be it that they fear of Bernie supporters sitting out another the election, or not wanting a full-on ugly party civil war is beyond me.
The pussyfooting around Bernie by moderates and the Party has done nothing but make Bernie stronger and will make any Bernie loss if it goes to a brokered convention that much more painful for the Democrats. If they are going to torpedo Bernie, they better damn them now. While the short term pain will be “bigly” and it will isolate a large segment of voters in the primary, political memories are short and this is early enough, people will forget and rally behind the non-Bernie nominee, especially since Trump will piss off the left more than the DNC will over the next 6 months.
Joe Biden (+750 to win DNC nomination) – Joe Biden probably had his best debate performance and is the establishment’s guy to win this caucus. The former Vice President needs to win in the desert to have any real chance to win the nomination. If he gets blown out this week, he will most certainly lose South Carolina next, and then its back to the golf course for Uncle Joe. On the flip side, Mike Bloomberg needs Joe Biden to lose and get out.
Pete Buttigieg (+750 to win DNC)/Amy Klobuchar (+4000 to win DNC)/Liz Warren (+2000 to win DNC) – We are almost in survive mode for these three. Both are starting to flame out on cash and need a big boost either here or South Carolina if they are going to have the money to go beyond Super Tuesday. Warren has flipped her position about taking SuperPAC money to stay afloat. Both Buttigieg and Klobachar only have a few million left in the bank. So 3rd place is very important here.
The Road Ahead:
After its slow and boring start, the Democratic road show heads to South Carolina, which is where Northern Liberals come to die. Bloomberg is not on the ballot which means the moderate knife fight will be between Joe Biden and Tom Steyer (+200000 to win DNC Nomination). You are not allowed to write in candidates in the South Carolina primary so this below is the field:
If Joe Biden wins South Carolina, this nomination process will end in a brokered convention. The only way Mike Bloomberg has a clear shot of winning the nomination outright is if Biden drops out and Biden only drops out if he loses South Carolina. Biden losing sets up a two-man race between Bloomberg and Bernie, Biden winning continues to split the vote and makes it impossible for anyone to reach the delegate total needed to secure the nomination before the convention.
Super Tuesday is a week and change away and that is the granddaddy of them all. We will see by then if Bloomberg’s strategy of skipping the early voting states and dumping $500 million on the rest of the country will pay off, or if this is Bernie’s primary and we are all living in it.
Burning the Bern
The path to Bernie’s success will be blocked at every turn by the Democratic Syndicate who has already started dropping bombs, starting with their lazy “Bernie is being back the Russians smear.” If this becomes decided by a brokered convention there is no shot in hell that Bernie is going to walk away with the nomination. It is for many reasons, first off, he is not a member of the Democratic Party and a lot of party loyalists and Hillary blame him partly for Hillary losing to Trump. Also, there is complete distrust that he would do anything to help Democrats down ticket and finally there is a real fear of the “Corbyrnization of the Democratic Party,” referencing the failed election of the Labour Party in Britain led by Jeremy Corbyn, whose failure is blamed on policies deemed too extreme and a lack of discipline that failed to rally a fractured party against a weakened opponent.
What happens if there is a brokered convention? We will get into that in a later edition of Betting Ballots, but we are adding Hillary Clinton (+2000 to win DNC nomination) and Michelle Obama to odds, as they could be seen as “unifying candidates.”
TRUMP
The Teflon Don continues to surge in the futures markets. Donnie is now a -200 consensus to win reelection. This means that the market gives Trump a 67% chance of winning reelection. The alleged 2.8 golf handicap is heavily favored despite being Impeached and having many public relations blunders since the fall where he was -110 to win reelection.
Why is Don such a heavy favorite? First off, the electoral college math favors him yet again and second most in the betting market think that his opponent is going to be Bernie Sanders (+300 to win POTUS). The betting market does not have a lot of respect for Bernie to win a general election. I know many of you will point to polls where he is 7-10 points, but that’s not going to last. America is still a center-right country and Bernie does not jive especially in a positive economic climate. The best comparison I found is Bernie Sanders is George McGovern.
The similarities of how they rose to the nomination are close as the front runner, the fractured Democratic Party against a Republican that worked hard to take out the front runner (Nixon with CREEP and Trump with the Biden Ukraine). Bernie’s nomination will be probably as ugly as McGovern and will have as tough of a time courting moderates. McGovern only won Virginia and 37.5% of the vote. I don’t think Bernie is going to lose by that much, but he isn’t going to match Hillary’s 20 states won and 48% of the popular vote would be his high water mark.
If Bernie does win the nomination, I see Trump’s futures price going to as high -350.
We will talk to you next week before South Carolina! Enjoy the Caucus.