Horse Race Politics

In this bonus episode, recorded live for CHERISH-Digital Economy Centre's Festival of Ideas at Swansea University, we take stock of US Politics on the week where Joe Biden will complete his first 100 days in office – reflecting on the reverberations of the contestation of the result of the 2020 election, analysing the performance and media coverage of the Biden regime, and looking forward (with a little help from the gambling markets) to assess the trajectory of the Republican and Democratic parties.

In this final episode, with the final result still in doubt, we take stock of what the results so far tell us about polling, betting markets, media coverage, and the use of satire and humour. We talk about John King's wall, the agony of filling air time with no news at hand, and the need to go 'beyond polls' in understanding campaign dynamics and outcomes.

In this last full week of the campaign, we review the latest stories and developments within and beyond the mainstream media, and review what the betting markets are making of it all. We then take a wider look at how this campaign, and the last four years that led up to it, have affected the American political landscape and ask whether there is any end in sight to the vicious polarisation that now characterises American politics.

This week, the candidates met for the final presidential debate of the campaign in Nashville. We discuss our reactions, those in the media and how the gambling markets saw things. Although this was the last major national campaign event for the candidates to set out their stall to the American electorate, there was little to chew over in terms of substantive policy. We unpack the policy versus horserace dynamics of campaign coverage and try to explain why there seems to be so little interest in covering or consuming news about the future policy agenda of the candidates vying for the world’s most powerful political office.

This week marked something of a re-set in the campaign, with Donald Trump returning to the campaign trail. We focus on the different worlds that are presented to citizens in the US through various media channels, unpacking the idea of media bias, and explaining how it has evolved as politics moves increasingly online. We look at the Lincoln project, which seeks to cross traditional partisan boundaries as well as efforts by media scholars to guide election coverage. We also review the key stories of the week, including Hunter Biden’s emails, and Donald Trump’s Dad dancing.

This week, with the dust still settling around an almighty ‘October surprise’ given to us by Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis, hospitalisation, and return to the White House, we focus on the polling – looking at how and why we use polls during campaigns, what the latest polls are telling us about the vote in November, and where gambling markets fit into the picture. We then round up these week’s stories and campaign developments, including a profile of a heroic fly who managed to dominate reaction to the Vice-Presidential debate.

This week kicks off with our reaction to the revelation that Donald Trump has tested positive for COVID-19. We describe how this has accelerated a dramatic downturn in the president's chances, at least as perceived by the betting markets, that was already in play following a tempestuous first Presidential debate on Tuesday. We discuss how debates can affect presidential campaigns, before delving into the details of Tuesday's mud fight. 

Welcome to Horse Race Politics! In this first episode, we talk about how and why we study election campaigns, and how gambling odds and media analysis can combine to help us understand what's going on. We discuss the media environment in today's USA and how it differs from the UK, before delving into the odds - outlining the twists and turns that have happened in the campaign from late March onwards.

Some materials mentioned in the podcast can be found below.

Our webpages, detailing our research and teaching interests:

Dr Matt Wall: https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/arts-and-humanities/politics/wall-m/

Dr Allaina Kilby: https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/arts-and-humanities/media/kilby-a/

Dr Richard Thomas: https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/arts-and-humanities/media/thomas-r/

Richard's book (co-authored with Professor Stephen Cushion): Reporting Elections: Rethinking the Logic of Campaign Coverage (available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reporting-Elections-Rethinking-Contemporary-Communication/dp/1509517510)

Matt's research on election odds and campaign analysis (co-authored with Drs Rory Costello and Stephen Lindsay): The miracle of the markets: Identifying key campaign events in the Scottish independence referendum using betting odds published in Electoral Studies (available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379416302049)