Obama and Clinton Switch Places on Intrade

Barack Obama has had a great start to 2008. He won the Iowa primary and performed well in the New Hampshire debates. To top it off investors have bid up his stock on Intrade. In fact, for the first time in the Presidential race Obama is trading above Hillary Clinton. Going into 2008 Clinton was trading around 70 and Obama around 20. As of right now Obama is trading at 55, and Clinton is around 41 (it looks like Byron Wien is off to a good start):


Obama's strong victory in Iowa surprised a lot of people. One possible explanation for Obama coming out of the gate so strong is the importance of the youth vote. If you visit Facebook's US Politics page you can track which candidates Facebook users support:


The current data does nothing to refute the notion that Barack holds a lot of weight with young voters. Once you break down the data even further it gets really interesting: Keep in mind the Facebook demographic is younger and a full two thirds of all Facebook members who have backed a candidate publicly have backed Democrats. The highest current vote getter is Barack Obama who has 39% of all votes. The second highest vote getter is Ron Paul with 13% of all vote getters. Ron Paul is followed closely by Hillary Clinton with 12% of the vote. Here is a more detailed demographic breakdown for the Democrats:

Barack Obama is strong with the youth crowd and Hillary is strong with the older crowd and with women. Nothing too surprising there.

Here's the breakdown for the Republicans:



Ron Paul is incredibly popular with males and with independents.

And finally Barack will probably fare well in New Hampshire if his sweep of the youth vote continues. Below is his Facebook support in New Hampshire (55% to Hillary's 16%):
Momentum means a lot for Presidential candidates, but we've seen in the past that winning early doesn't guarantee anything.



Hat Tip: Facebook