Betting the 2020 Democratic Primaries on Super Tuesday

If you place occasional sports bets and can’t handle the swings of a two-hour sporting event, Super Tuesday probably isn’t the day you want to start betting on politics. We’re talking about delegates from 14 states and American Samoa being awarded to 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates. That’s 1,617 delegates in total, with 1,991 needed to win on the first ballot.

If the Democratic Convention arrives and no candidate has earned the support of at least 1,991 delegates, superdelegates will decide the Presidential candidate representing the Democratic Party in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. In short, Super Tuesday is the political Super Bowl, except instead of one big game, 14 games are played, with scores changing rapidly over the course of five or six hours. It’s the single greatest day to gamble on American elections.

What Super Tuesday Bettors Need to Know

In 1988, a rule was adopted to thin the field of Democratic Presidential candidates. Candidates must earn at least 15 percent of the popular vote in a state’s primary election in order to be awarded at-large delegates from that state. Candidates can still win district-level delegates by earning at least 15 percent of the vote in Congressional districts, however. Failing to earn at least 15 percent of a popular vote in a primary isn’t a persuasive means of soliciting campaign contributions, however.

With one of the remaining Democratic Presidential candidates not likely to run out of money (Mike Bloomberg is a billionaire), the rule will have a somewhat limited impact in 2020. But it still bodes well for the frontrunners in the polls who stand to win a larger share of a state’s delegates with every candidate who fails to garnish 15 percent of the vote. If you intend to bet on the 2020 Democratic Primaries on Super Tuesday, you’ll want to be at least vaguely aware of how states award delegates. But it’s essential to remember that every candidate who fails to reach 15 percent of the vote means more delegates for those who do.

Also essential to successful politics betting is knowing when to walk away. Much like video poker and keno gaming machines, walking away at the right time can be the difference between winning and losing on Super Tuesday. Unlike typical sports betting, politics-books (places taking politics bets) are operated more like stock exchanges than sportsbooks. Instead of betting on and awaiting a result, at places like PredictIt you buy shares in a stock representing a particular outcome at a price determined by the market of stock traders. You can then await the result or sell your shares at a profit or a loss before the outcome is final.

Knowing when to sell your shares is more important than knowing when to buy them. There’s considerable money to be made betting the trends regardless of when you get into the market. I was a little late getting in on Bernie Sanders to win the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, but those shares I bought at an average of $0.21 each have increased five cents since I bought them.

Bernie Sanders might be the frontrunner for the Democratic Presidential nomination prior to Super Tuesday, but there’s a good chance (a two in three chance according to FiveThirtyEight) he and everyone else could fall short of the 1,991 delegates needed to win the nomination on the first ballot. It’s already been reported that a majority of superdelegates will not support Sanders, and we really needed it reported that old-ass, rich-ass moderates still suffering from Cold War trauma, confusing socialism with Communism, and living as if there’s no room for socialism in a capitalistic nation despite driving on highways that are a socialism success story wouldn’t support the man who wants to raise their taxes.

So if Sanders can’t secure the nomination on the first ballot, he won’t, which makes knowing when to walk away and sell your shares so important. Super Tuesday will determine whether my bet on Sanders to win the nomination at +800 ($100 bet wins $900) is looking good or bad. But I must also know if Sanders cannot win the nomination and sell my stock in him winning the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election before the rest of the PredictIt market realizes it. There’s a lot of math that must be done swiftly in order to maximize your returns or minimize your losses when betting on elections. Now that you’ve got a general sense of the swings Super Tuesday brings, let’s look at some of the state-specific storylines worthy of your betting attention.

California is Key to Victory

The Washington Examiner‘s Timothy P. Carney thinks the 2020 California Democratic Primary could “almost clinch it for Bernie Sanders.” But Carney didn’t show his work, asserting that Sanders could easily win up to 280 of the 415 California delegates. FiveThirtyEight projects Sanders winning an average of 215.9 California delegates on Super Tuesday, but earns between 160 and 276 delegates in 80 percent of outcomes.

RealClearPolitics has the latest poll in California from USA Today/Suffolk showing Sanders as the only Democratic candidate clearing the 15-percent, popular vote threshold. That means there’s a good chance Sanders could win even more than the 280 delegates Carney estimated. If that’s the case, Sanders will be sitting pretty given polling data in other states.

Texas Democrats Support Sanders

While most polls have three candidates earning 15 percent of the popular vote in the Texas Democratic Primary on Tuesday, Sanders (31 percent) led Joe Biden by five points in the latest poll. However, FiveThirtyEight projects Biden earning 30 percent of the vote in Texas. If the polling data is accurate, Sanders could cut into Biden’s chances even more by winning a majority of delegates in Texas. As of this writing Sanders is projected to win 84 to Biden’s 85 Texas delegates.

Super Tuesday State of Surprises: Minnesota

With Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar dropping out of the race prior to Super Tuesday, Sanders could win all of Minnesota’s 75 delegates. Elizabeth Warren was polling at 11 percent in the latest poll from Feb. 23, with Biden at eight percent. Forfeits are usually followed by an endorsement, and Klobuchar obviously endorsed Biden, who needed all the help he could get. Sanders was poised to beat Klobuchar in her home state and now Biden, who was running fourth a week ago, could benefit from Klobuchar gift-wrapping up to 29 percent of Democratic Primary voters in Minnesota. That said, it’s time for me to get on the phone for Bernie.