Ron Paul Intrade Trends

Intrade has good news, bad news, good news and bad news about Ron Paul's odds of securing the Republican nomination.

(courtesy of Ronpaulgraphs.com)

The Good news is that Ron Paul's odds are improving - he's recently been closing above the seven dollar mark (from this graph which assumes a $100 payout on nomination). This puts him above McCain (though still close) and leaves Huckabee in the dust. It also puts him halfway to Fred Thompson, in a slump if not a freefall.

The bad news is 7 cents on the dollar still makes him a longshot. Giuliani, the Frontrunner, has six TIMES as much chance as Paul at this point. Even Fred Thompson has twice as good a chance right now.

The other good news is that this improvement is part of a long term upwards trend. A least squares regression (plotting a line which minimizes the area between a line representing the data and the straight line - it's a reasonable rough approximation of a general trend) shows an increase of roughly a dollar a month. projecting forward (assuming the trend continues) suggests that Ron Paul's numbers will cross the 10 dollar mark sometime in February. Anything under ten to one odds is officially in contention - especially since the person most likely to give up the points to him is Thompson, which means Paul would pose a serious threat to his status as contender in third place.

The other bad news is that February is too late for the Iowa Caucus or the New Hampshire Primary. Now Ron Paul doesn't necessarily have to WIN either of these to benefit from them. Any suitably strong showing would bring mainstream attention to him. However, a POOR showing would be a horrific missed opportunity. He could still influence the election, but ultimately, his nomination hopes would be gone by that point. You don't need to win the Iowa or the New Hampshire to win the Nomination. However, if you don't have the wins, then you DO need momentum.

Of course, linear trends are not the last word by any means. in the medium term (say, looking from 9/11 to present), Ron Paul's numbers seem to be picking up steam and, if he can hold THAT momentum, long enough, he could break ten percent by Christmas!

Here's to hope!