Friday Horse Race (on Saturday!)

So, how has the convention altered the apparent electoral map? Not significantly, it turns out.

The moves on the Tradesports map were incremental. The "George Bush Industrial Average" (the price of a single contract in every state) experienced a shallow recovery of 13 points. The composite now stands at 2846.9, mostly based upon a broad gain of one to two points in several solid Bush states. The electoral college has dropped to a tie, however, with West Virginia trading at exactly 50%.

Major movements since last week:

• Weak Kerry to Strong Kerry - New Hampshire (40%)
  
• Weak Bush to Tied - West Virginia (50%)

If each state has exactly as many voters in 2004 as in 2000, and each state voted according to the trading odds, Kerry would be leading the popular vote by a margin of +5.32 (a drop of 0.34% over the week), or 2.4 million votes.

Odds

Bush: Strong - 206; Weak - 63; Total - 269
Kerry: Strong - 254; Weak - 10; Total - 264

Kerry still leads the popular map, but there has been little noteworthy post-convention movement. Most moves we have sene reflect the ping-ponging state of opnion in the swing states, consistently vacillating between two adjacent categories. Major movers:

• Weak Kerry to Strong Kerry - New Hampshire (+5%), Minnesota (+5%), Florida (+5%)
  
• Strong Kerry to Weak Kerry - Wisconsin (+4%)
  
• Weak Bush to Strong Bush - Arizona (+6%)
  
• Tied to Weak Bush - Missouri (+1%)

Polls

Bush: Strong - 187; Weak - 50; Total - 237
Kerry: Strong - 267; Weak - 26; Total - 293
Tied + Delaware: 8

If each candidate were to receive a proportion of votes cast in 2000 equal to their current poll-rating, Kerry would be leading the popular vote by a margin of 2.64%, which is a rise of 0.96% over last week. This would translate into a lead of 2.4 million popular votes.

Later today (after 5pm PST) I will update the TradeSports and Averaged Poll data tables (data for averaging available here.