The Following post was written by @_thewiseman. You can follow him on Twitter here.

I am a trader.

I predict in terms of odds, not in terms of outcome. This being the case I think it’s very likely that Mitt Romney will win the Presidential election.

I am fully aware of Nate Silver and all that are relying on his “math”. I understand that his “math” gives Mitt Romney practically zero chance of winning. For starters, I am not willing to rely so heavily on someone because he did a great job of predicting just one election even if he got as close to perfection as possible (getting 49/50 states correct). Second, I don’t question his “math” but rather his method. His theory sounds great – it’s a complex version of taking the averages of all state and national polls and that should be a great indicator of what should happen. The obvious problem can be if most polls are under or over estimating certain factors. Will there be more Democrats or Republicans voting? Which party is more likely to swing over to the other side? Which party is more enthusiastic etc.. etc…?  The amount of groupthink in trusting Silver is reaching epic proportions and I think is blinding people to other views on the election.

There are two ways to look at most polls, we can take them at face value or look beneath the headline at the “internals”. Almost all polls that I have seen are overestimating the Democratic turnout relative to the Republican turnout. In 2008 the Democratic turnout was seven percent more than the Republican turnout. Party affiliation in 2008 was +7 towards the Democratic party according to Rasmussen and now it’s +5 for the Republican party. Even if you were to say Rasmussen is skewed to the right (which it probably is on some level) there certainly has been a shift in the country towards the Republican party since Obama has taken office. We see this in actual elections. Chris Christie winning in new Jersey and Scott Brown in Massachusetts sent shock-waves throughout the political world. The Republicans took the house in 2010 in a far greater way than any pundit expected. Gallup which had the most optimistic polling for Republicans predicted the house would swing 40 seats. The Republicans won 63 seats.

In virtually every poll independents lean towards Romney and in some polls heavily towards him. There’s a CNN poll out today which has Romney winning independents 59-35.

In virtually every poll Republicans are far more enthusiastic than Democrats.

Romney still has momentum. We are starting to see polls in Pennsylvania and Michigan showing Romney slightly behind and in some polls, even up slightly. Although the groupthink claims his momentum stalled due to hurricane Sandy I am not seeing that happen much in the swing state polls and I am seeing in the Pennsylvania and Michigan polls above, his momentum getting stronger.

In summary,there are many variables and no one knows how they will all play out. From all the factors above I see a Mitt Romney victory very likely. If I were a betting man I would bet a small victory but I would be only be slightly surprised to see him take Pennsylvania and Michigan. A shocker would be if he takes Minnesota as well.

Don’t forget to vote!!!

- The Wiseman