The Daily Iowan:
UI electronic market beats polls

Researchers in the UI Tippie College of Business announced on Thursday they have determined that since the market’s founding in 1988, it has been more useful than polls for those attempting to predict which presidential hopefuls will succeed in their White House bids.

Joyce Berg, a UI associate professor of accounting and the market’s director, said there are several reasons the market’s results are on average 74 percent closer to actual presidential-nomination contests and general-election results than are opinion polls.“

The Iowa Electronic Markets have a good track record going, and if you google this business, you’ll see that for yourself. I’m posting this because, every time I have mentioned this tool to people, they have no clue what I’m babbling about. So, I’m trying to spread the word. I do wish that the researchers could add some kind of RSS feed to this site to make it a little more accessible.

At the link below, you can see the prices at which the futures are trading. This gives you the investors’ views of the probability that a presidential candidate will win.
2008 Presidential Nomination Markets

As of 2/14/08, here are the last prices:

• McCain’s was 0.933
• Huckabee’s was 0.009
• Obama’s was 0.680
• Clinton’s was 0.310

So, as far I as can gather, the investors are now projecting that McCain and Obama will win. Let’s see whether they are correct in the long run.

For more info, see Slate.com’s guide to political markets.

-MC Spanky McGee