Electoral Votes

One of the points I discussed in an earlier post called  "Three Things Everybody Knows" was that most of the media and political pundits have been endlessly discussing all of the dire possibilities that could happen if the election is close or undecided for weeks after it's held.  In that post I said I thought if the election were held when I was writing that piece Mr. Biden would win perhaps 300 votes.  That's not a political statement, I don't do politics on this blog except how it's related to investing.  It's me donning an old political science hat and counting votes.  The political blog 538.com, however, is all about politics and when they count the votes they think Mr. Biden could win as many as 350 electoral votes.  If so that's a landslide.  I'll stick with my 280-320 range from Friday {the post below this one}.  

If these numbers hold up then you can probably forget about all that post election angst we've been hearing over the electronic airwaves.   Now obviously the election isn't being held today so there's still time for the President to change the narrative.  But, the assault of negative news coming out against him is unrelenting and NBC yesterday reported in their polling data that a very low amount of the electorate remains undecided.  It's getting harder and harder for him to find minds to change.

The reason this is important from an investment perspective is that if these numbers continue to hold up then the markets will increasingly price in a Biden presidency next year.  I have said before that I don't think the markets care if Mr. Biden wins as he's a known commodity to investors.  What is important to them is the composition of the Senate and that still seems to be neck and neck.  

Back Wednesday.