Manifold's Election Summary: 'Polling Error This Cycle Seems Not to Be Large — Just Inconsistent'

Jacob Cohen of the betting prediction market Manifold offered this U.S. general elections summary on Wednesday afternoon.

"The final map is not be very surprising: assuming all the remaining states go the expected way, it’s simply Trump sweeping the Seven Swing States and nothing else, for 312 electoral votes. The Silver Bulletin forecast, for all its indecision, said this was the single most likely map. The polling error this cycle seems not to be large — just consistent."

Manifold Markets officially projected that Donald Trump would be the next President of the United States prior to the Midnight hour Tuesday, hours before the television networks did so.  Some could argue that BetOnline made the projection even before the polls closed.  Of the so-called "swing states", they had all but Michigan going for Donald Trump.  And who would have thought that New Jersey, Virginia, even Illinois would get close to electing him.

Manifold did not have Trump winning the popular vote, which was unexpected.

Congress

The Senate is going red: it’s just a question of the size of the majority. The Democrats will not pick up any seats — Nebraska won’t even go independent. Republicans are flipping West Virginia and Ohio. Probably Montana and Pennsylvania. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada will be close. Outside chance for Arizona. We’re looking at a 53- or 54-seat majority, probably, which means that moderates Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski won’t control the balance of power. It’ll be someone more conservative.

At first it seemed like the House would actually be in doubt, and we could get a “triple flip” of the party of the presidency, Senate, and House. Critical House seats are in states like California which count slower. But it seems like we’re now overwhelmingly likely for a trifecta. This means Republicans, if they can get their act together, will have a fair amount of scope to pass new legislation.

Faster Results

Also, in general, prediction markets did a good job in capturing the twists and turns of the election, consistently giving faster results than news networks. Our Election Day graph does not have a lot of twists and turns. Trump won Florida early, had good signs in the Sun Belt, which then turned to red indications everywhere. Our traders caught on early on moved the market decisively.

"A bright spot last night: our site didn’t go down!"