Rolling the Dice On the Polls

Rolling the Dice On the Polls

By Ed Kociela

There’s a reason why Las Vegas has all of those bright, shiny casinos.

You can book all the saloon singers you want, parade all the scantily clad showgirls on stage that you can, it all comes down to the guys in the back room with their nose buried in the numbers.

They are the oddsmakers and they almost never lose.

Whether you’re betting on the Las Vegas Raiders or dropping a few shekels on who will emerge from March Madness with the winning net, these are the guys who will determine how much you stand to win by setting the odds.

You can forget about the NFL or NCAA basketball for awhile. The real race, the one for the White House, is coming down to the wire and even if you believe the polls to be fake or a hoax or some other indefensible notion, you had better pay heed to the oddsmakers.

While placing a wager on the presidential election is forbidden in the United States, a bookmaker is a bookmaker and some of the international houses are taking heavy action right now on the U.S. presidential election. Going in, they are pegging Joe Biden as a 66 percent favorite to win when all the shouting is over, whenever that might be.

Four years ago at this stage, the odds started to get a little funny, with Hillary Clinton dipping even though the polls showed her with a slight lead among voters. It turns out that both the polls and oddsmakers had it right as Clinton won the popular vote but failed in the Electoral College.

Now, however, the odds are picking up for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who have gained about 4 percent in recent days.

Now, between the time this was written (Sunday) and today, God only knows what has transpired to shake things up. The only thing predictable about a race with Donald Trump involved is its unpredictability. Such are our times.

Still, there was a time when political scientists could measure the public senses and prognosticate with fair accuracy. There weren’t a lot of surprises this late in the game. We knew when the race was a tossup like 1960, and we knew when it was a runaway, like 1980.

The thing is today, Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight polling is running just about neck-and-neck with the overseas bookmakers, placing Biden as a 68 percent favorite to win.

The books and Silver also are pretty sure the Democrats will retain control of the House and have a decent chance to hold between 48 and 55 seats in the Senate, which would be a nasty defeat for an incumbent president and his party.

Despite all of that, I still wouldn’t place a bet on this election, even if I had your money in my gaming bank. Three weeks can be an eternity in today’s world and even though there are few scenarios I can think of to turn the fortunes in favor of the Republicans, I’d rather take my chances at the roulette wheel than laying a bet on what will happen when the ballots are all counted even though the stakes and payoff are insignificant in comparison.

All I can be sure of is the fact that the Supreme Court nomination, the fight for an additional stimulus package, and COVID-19, which seems to be the biggest influence on how voters will respond, will promote even more animosity between the parties.

And, although much has been made of the president’s increasingly erratic behavior, some saying it is cinching a Biden win, I’m not so sure about that.

It rises to the level of extreme voter suppression rooted in fear of voters encountering thugs like the Proud Boys or other white supremacist bullies when they go to the polls. It prompts concerns about the legitimacy of the election. It promotes the notion that a Trump loss could result in an all-out civil war instead of a peaceful and orderly transition of political power. All of that comes into play as we try to get into the heads of voters as they go to the polls and I am not sure which way it will push them, to be perfectly honest.

This could be the most visceral election in the nation’s history as the vibe replaces sensibilities. In fact, issues have not really played a major role in this election except among old-timers and purists, of which there are lessening numbers, as the two parties duke it out. Oh, we have had some topical application of ideology, but voters have been locked in more on the slugfest than cerebral exchanges. Talking to voters I have heard more people talk about how “Trump is an idiot,” “Biden is a socialist,” “Pence is a lackey,” and “Harris is a screaming liberal,” than how to fix the economy in a post-COVID-19 environment, how to ensure health care for all, or how to solve the systemic racism inherent in the American culture.

From the top-down, without question, Democrats have gone lighter in the mudslinging, partly because of a commitment to taking a higher road, but mostly because, well, their opponent has shot himself in the foot so frequently they haven’t had to do much to return a reasonable volley.

Still, they have not allowed themselves to get overconfident because the one lesson the Democrats learned from the last time around is that it is not a good idea to sit on your lead, which is what happened with Clinton, who got either lazy, sloppy, or both as the campaign wound into its final days. They are not so complacent this time, and understand that the remaining 21 days are still very important.

They know that without a decisive victory at the polls, they are in for a hell of a fight in the courts.

They know that without a mandate from the voters, they could lose the battle for the next SCOTUS jurist.

They know that without a strong win, Republicans could very well deal out payback to voters by refusing a stimulus package to help Americans who are struggling to pay the rent and put food on the table.

And, they most painfully know that it ain’t over ‘til it’s over and that it is still, no matter what anybody says, a crapshoot.