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US Election Betting after Super Tuesday

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Politics odds and betting experts Chicken Dinner take a look at what the future holds for the Obama/Clinton contest...

On Tuesday, an unprecedented twenty-two states held contests to determine the Democratic presidential nominee and by the next morning it was supposed to be all over. "Tonight we are hearing the voices of people across America," cried Senator Clinton. "The time for change has come," roared Senator Obama, although when the dust had settled, it turned out neither had put the other out of business, ensuring a relentless grind from primary to primary until the summer conventions. Mrs Clinton ([1.86] on Betfair to be next Democrat candidate) currently leads Mr Obama ([2.18]), but can she fend him off through the next big encounters?

Ohio, March 4

Both Democrat runners would be advised to set up their stumps nice and early in Ohio, whose 20 electoral votes and relatively late primary make it the most important swing state in the country. Since 1992, it has played a decisive role in many closely fought presidential campaigns (memorably Bush vs. Kerry in 2004), and since 1892, Ohio has gone to the winner of the overall election on all but two occasions. Mrs Clinton currently holds a two-to-one lead over Mr Obama there.

Texas, March 4

Mrs Clinton once again has a head start: Texas contributed more money to her campaign this year than even solidly Democratic California, and only New York gave more. She is wildly popular in the Rio Grand Valley, where people remember her from her White House days, when she showed an interest in the economically troubled region after most politicians had abandoned it. She also built up a formidable portfolio of business contacts. Obama could sneak in and claim Austin, the progressive Democrat heartland of Texas, but lacks a broad enough base of support to clean up throughout. Furthermore, Obama trails by very large margins among Latino voters who make over a quarter of the population, and blue-collar working class voters, who dominate the large agricultural regions.

The Democratic Convention, August 25-28

There are still some 800 non-regional "super-delegates" who are not required to commit their votes to a particular candidate until the summer convention. Obama is widely perceived as politically inexperienced, and although a brilliant orator, his high-flown rhetoric works better on the general public than politicians, who are more attracted to Clinton's hands-on approach to bread-and-butter issues of healthcare and house prices. Clinton has strong backing with the party establishment and recent data suggests that she is expected to trounce Obama at the convention with a margin of around 150 delegates.

So bad news for Barack?

Not at all. Obama fell well short of the clear win on Super Tuesday that his supporters had fantasised about, winning only one "big hitter" (his home state of Illinois), and there are doubts as to how he would fare in a McCain match-up (answer = badly). But it was desperately close: according to the New York Times, Mrs. Clinton won 50.2 percent of the votes cast for the two candidates on Super Tuesday, and Mr. Obama 49.8 percent. Obama is also a buzz politician, with a genius for firing up crowds and creating momentum, and he has grounds to believe he'll be favoured in the remaining primaries this month. One Hillary advisor said "There's a chance we may not win a single primary or caucus in February, so we're banking on Ohio and Texas." And by then, the pendulum could have swung again.

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