It’s been just over a week since Donald Trump was declared the next US president, and the world is still trying to adjust to the fact that a billionaire real estate mogul is now set to take on one of the most influential roles in the world. Many are still searching for the key to Donald Trump’s unpredictability, wondering just what kind of moves this new president might make next. We took notice, and decided to examine the state of presidential wagering as of this past Sunday night, the day after the election.
The Odds Are Now In Favor Of A Trump Presidency
With all of the election coverage, it was easy to forget that the odds on this week’s presidential election actually swung in favor of Donald Trump fairly early on. The closest states to picking a winner were Georgia and North Carolina, and if those had gone to Hillary Clinton, the election would have been much closer to a toss-up. As it happened, those two southern states went to Trump, and the odds on the presidential election shifted in favor of the real estate mogul from approximately 370-to-1 to a close to even chance of 340-to-1.
All The Action Was On The Republican Side
From the very beginning, the betting action was clearly on the Republican side with Donald Trump as the favorite to win. With his celebrity status and overwhelming support among ‘right-leaning independent’ voters, the main event on the 2016 ballot appeared destined to be one of the most interesting election seasons in recent memory. The early odds-maker favorites on the Democratic side were all longshots, with Bernie Sanders a distant second behind Clinton. Trump won the White House, but Sanders took Oklahoma and Utah, while Clinton picked Arkansas and Massachusetts. The Democratic race then split into two parts: a battle for the middle ground, and a war over the hearts and minds of young liberals.
How The Predictions Of Some Experts And Bloggers Vied
The main reason the 2016 election was such a surprise to so many was because of the complete lack of polling data on the part of the Clinton campaign. Without any sort of preexisting polling that could have been compared to and contrasted with actual voting data, the Clinton team was flying blind, and wound up in a number of predicaments. While many in the media were predicting a Trump presidency, these same sources were typically making their picks based on which candidate was likely to do better in the polls. However, in a number of cases, these experts and blogger’s ‘educated guesses’ based on polling data turned out to be dead wrong.
Many Were Inspired By The Nomadic Election
An unusual feature of the 2016 election was that while Donald Trump was winning in the polls, a significant number of voters were still planning to spoil their ballots. In some cases, these voters were planning to vote for Hilllary Clinton even though they supported Donald Trump in the popular vote. The Nomadic Election refers to the fact that, for whatever reason, these voters had decided to vote while on the move. This became such a significant problem for the Clinton campaign that the Democratic nominee made an unprecedented effort to get people to vote absentee, especially in the swing states of Florida, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In fact, in the closing weeks of the campaign, Trump even touted his success in getting out the vote, particularly among ‘silent’ voters (those who didn’t participate in the political process prior to the election). Even though most of these voters didn’t support Trump, their votes still counted towards his total, as no one—not even Clinton—was willing to guess what a Trump voter might do given the chance. This proved to be a huge advantage for the real estate mogul, who earned 46% of the vote compared to Hillary Clinton’s 44% in the 2016 election.
What Else Can We Learn From This Year’s Election?
While the world was shocked by the result of the 2016 presidential election, it was also a good reminder that no one, not even presidential nominees or incumbents, can truly predict how an election will turn out based on existing polling data. In this case, the polls were simply wrong, a fact that should not be overlooked. While it is true that public opinion polls can be quite reliable when it comes to gauging the opinions of the American people regarding hot-button political topics such as immigration or the legalization of abortion, the same cannot be said for general election polling. According to Gallup, only about 1 in 4 public opinion polls conducted in the final weeks of the campaign were ‘correct’, meaning that they predicted the actual election results more than 95% of the time. It comes as no real surprise that the political experts and pundits who were ‘wrong’ about Hillary Clinton’s odds of winning the presidency typically cite her team’s lack of readiness as the reason behind their inaccurate forecasts. In this case, it appears that the late arrival of the Clinton campaign on the national stage and their subsequent scramble to get their act together may have cost them the election. Overall, it appears that the Democrats missed a golden opportunity to turn the tables of this historically bitter election season, as they spent the last few weeks grasping for any bit of good news that they could find. In the end, they couldn’t, and the GOP picked up a key Senate seat in Alabama (which voted 78% to 22% for Trump), as well as several House seats, giving the Republicans a solid start to what could be a historic fourth term in the White House.
Are We Finally Ready For A More ‘Normative’ Polity?
If 2016 was the year of the outsider, then it was also a year for political pundits and experts to learn a valuable lesson: that the American people are sick and tired of political correctness run amok and of the status quo being perpetuated by the same politicians and elites who have been in power for far too long. As it turns out, just about everyone—voters and non-voters alike—wanted to send a message with their ballots, and that message was: ‘enough!’ With the political establishment at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue discredited by an unprecedented number of insider deals, shady practices and outright bribery, the American people have finally woken up and are looking for new leadership. Much like the establishment figures they are rejecting, the Democratic and Republican nominees were both products of the politically correct society they condemn, with both guilty of being too nice, too accommodating and not tough enough. This is the type of leadership that the American people are seeking, and it is precisely what Donald Trump promised to bring to the Oval Office.