Betting on politics: a Senate battle in Arizona

published 19 October 2018

918-Kirsten-Sinema-634 — Sinema: narrow lead

This week I'm going to look at Arizona, one of the key battlegrounds for the control of the US Senate. With incumbent senator Jeff Flake not seeking re-election due to a low popularity rating, the contest is between Democrat Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Martha McSally. Ladbrokes has McSally as the favourite at 8/11, while offering evens on Sinema. Paddy Power offers slightly less generous odds on McSally of 4/6 (60%), but has better terms of 11/10 (47.6%) on Sinema.

Arizona has traditionally leaned towards the Republicans, thanks in part to the state's popularity with elderly retirees, who tend to be more conservative. In the past 17 presidential elections, the Democrats carried the state just once, when Bill Clinton was re-elected in 1996. But changing demographics mean that the gap between the two parties has narrowed, as shown by the fact that Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton there by just over 3% in the presidential election two years ago.

Sinema has tried to appeal to the centre ground, while McSally has targeted the Republican base. Sinema's tactics seem to be working better, with 11 of the 14 latest polls putting her ahead. McSally is now attacking Sinema for some comments about people joining the Taliban that she made in 2003 and this could shift some voters, but it probably won't be enough to overcome Sinema's lead. So I'd recommend betting on Sinema to win with Paddy Power.

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Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

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