Tuesday Primaries, Polling, & Bets

Tonight, a whole bunch of primaries from around the country will be decided. In Arkansas, there will be a run off between Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov Bill Halter. Lincoln was able to beat Halter by a couple of points in the regular primary but was not able to avoid a run off which might prove deadly to her political career. There has been very little polling in this race and the only poll we have to rely on is Research2000. They currently have Halter in the lead by +4 points but considering how unreliable RS2000/DailyKos polling has become recently, I wouldn't be willing to place a wager on Halter who is the current favorite. In fact, I have placed a small speculative wager on Lincoln at 20.5%. I just wish we had better polling. RS2000/DailyKos had Lincoln 9+ points ahead right before the primary. I'm hoping this time, they are way off again but in my favor.

In California, there are two gubernatorial primaries and a Republican senate primary. A couple of weeks back I was able to spot a SurveyUSA poll which had Carly Fiorina in the lead by 23% points opposite of what RS2000/DailyKos had found literally less then a week before. They polled the race 4 days before SurveyUSA and had Campbell in the lead by 15%. I decided to trust SurveyUSA and I shorted Campbell at the time for 50%. The lesson I learned then and what some traders might learn tonight is that there are pollsters you can trust and pollsters you can't. Some pollsters can even go from trustworthy to untrustworthy, such as Research2000. They might by right tonight, but I'm not betting on it.