Forecasting Texas
The bellwether state for the midterms this fall
The Senate Map
Today is the first test in the Democratic Party’s attempt to win back the Senate this fall. This is an uphill battle, by all accounts. Retaking the Senate requires not just winning all of the states they’re favored in (including flipping North Carolina and Maine, as well as holding onto tough seats in Michigan and Georgia), but also winning two more races in challenging territory. Their likeliest options here are probably Alaska, Iowa, Ohio, Nebraska (where they’ve stepped aside for independent candidate Dan Osborn, that is) and… Texas.
It’s reasonable to litigate which of these pickups are more likely than others. In fact, Manifold traders seem to think that Alaska, Ohio, and Iowa represent slightly easier pickup opportunities than Texas, but the democrats need at least two of these reach states to take the Senate. Texas, the second most populous state in the union, would be a big prize for other reasons, including down-ballot races that have the chance to burst through the republican-gerrymandered house map. Conditional on the democrats taking back the Senate, there’s probably something like a 75% chance that the final map runs through Texas (someone should make a market on this), and if the democrats do win Texas, their victory is all but guaranteed.
Texas Senate Primaries
Tonight, the polls close in a couple hours, by 9pm ET for the westernmost tip of Texas. On the dem side of the ballot, there has been a closely fought race between Rep. Jasmine Crockett and State Rep. James Talarico. Manifold traders think that Talarico’s odds are better than Crockett’s in the general election, perhaps due to some combination of his appeal to moderate voters and less contentious style of politics.
As Nate Silver and others have noted, Talarico’s odds on prediction markets have outpaced what you might infer from the raw polling data. Until a couple days ago, the polling showed, if anything, Crockett with a slight lead, although there were nits to pick about the biases of internal polling from both of the candidates’ campaigns. Certainly, it didn’t seem like the 70-30 election that prediction markets had priced it at.
Well, late-breaking polls and some amount of tea-leaf-reading on the day of the election has now thrown Crockett’s odds down to about 11%, before any ballots have been counted. Much of the voting in the Texas primary is through early balloting, it should be noted.
On the Republican side, the race seems marginally closer. The firebrand MAGA-aligned Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, is primary-ing the senior senator out of Texas, John Cornyn, with Rep. Wesley Hunt likely to end in a distant third, but also likely to act as a spoiler to send the race to a (costly) runoff. Most of Cornyn’s probability mass in winning the election and holding onto his seat runs through that potential runoff.
Indeed, there’s a distant chance of a runoff in the Democratic primary as well, due to an “obscure third candidate,” Ahmad Hassan.
You can also forecast on the margin of victory in the dem primary, which might be the more interesting question given the steep odds at this point.
The creator of all these Texas elections questions, Manifold user Jack1, looks to have a sharp understanding of the state of the races. He made over 100k in profit last month, topping Manifold’s Masters’ League. His biggest profit on a single market came from betting on the primary race in Texas:
Looking Forward to the Fall
There has been a slight uptick in the democrats’ odds of winning the Senate election this November, given the increased likelihood of a matchup between Talarico and Paxton, the most favorable matchup for the dems on paper.
A parlay on Graham Platner and James Talarico both winning their primaries has also risen to 70%. The two candidates make for interesting bedfellows as very different rising stars in the Democratic party. Talarico is known for his poised demeanor, his campaign’s focus on his Christian observance, and legibility to members of the other party. Platner is known for his across-the-aisle appeal as well, but also his past (and present?) dalliances with anti-Semitism, from his Nazi tattoos to his appearances with conspiracy theorist podcasters.
Platner, however, is the one with better odds this fall of unseating a republican senator. Manifold traders give him a 68% chance of beating Collins if he wins his primary.
Roundup
Dem odds of winning bicameral control of the legislature this fall is up to 38%, more than twice as high as the ~15% it was trading at for the first few months of the Trump administration.
This market on whether Greg Abbott will refuse to certify the Senate election this fall in Texas seems important and needs more than the 7 traders it has, but currently sits at 24%!
Finally, Talarico is already at 1.4% in the odds to be the Democratic nominee in 2028. Remember that other young, first-term senator who became president a few years back?
Happy Forecasting!
-Above the Fold