Intrade Mid-Term Forecast (9-13-2010)

One of the great things about Intrade is that it is not a model. It a market with buyers and sellers looking for and synthesizing information. As a result it is constantly updating and can adjust to all types of information, not just poll numbers. Every Monday, from now until the election, I will graphically show what Intrade Prediction Markets are forecasting for the 2010 Congressional Elections.

The Senate

Intrade Senate Forecast	Democrats	Republicans	Independents
Grouped	48.9	48.8	2.3
Individually	48.5	49.5	2

The grouped forecast represents the combined probability of 11 Senate Races that appear to be in play. These are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Nevada, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The prices used are of the favorite. The probabilities are then added to the assumed number of safe Senate seats, 44 for the Democrats and 43 for the Republicans. The Individual forecast simply takes the predicted winner of each individual race and adds 1 to the number of assumed safe seats. In case of a 50%/50% tie, which we have thanks to Wisconsin (.5) will be added to both.

The House

Intrade House Forecast	Republicans	Democrats
Probability of Winning	71.0%	21.0%

As you can see, the Republicans are a huge favorite to win the House and even have a significant chance of gaining more seats than 54 which they did in the 1994 mid-term elections.