“Technology does not drive change. It is our collective response to the options and opportunities presented by technology that drives change.” – Paul Saffo
The US political crunch is finally here – I am so looking forward to this being over with. Below, I summarize what we should keep an eye on and when we can expect to see relevant results. Bring on the chaos.
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WHAT I’M WATCHING
Midterms prep
Finally, the day is here when Americans choose their local and state representatives in Congress. I won’t belabour the significance of this as I’m sure there’s only so much political analysis you can take – and I’m certainly not going to pretend to be an American political analyst, no mumbling about progressives vs centrists vs populists and how we have to watch how the urban/rural vote splits (although we probably do).
Still, it’s worth distilling what to watch, as today is about more than the US balance of power. It’s also about the market outlook. And who doesn’t love a bit of drama.
Now, pretty much every media source has spilt gallons of pixels in explaining which are the key races to follow, and I’ve found all of them confusing. No aspersions being cast here, the electoral map IS confusing – but I like to grasp whatever glimpses of clarity I can, so I made my own list. I’ll be asleep when the results start coming in, but tomorrow morning I want to be able to fire up the computer and go through a state-by-state replay, because that’s where the suspense lies.
So, below I’ll do my best to simplify the math and the metrics to beat; I’ll summarize the situation in the 13 states I’m paying attention to; I’ll lay out the timing of when we should start to see results; and I’ll discuss the potential market impact.
The math
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