By Noah Lieberman

Ballotcraft is a fantasy politics game (think fantasy football, but for politics). Play against your friends and win by best predicting what’s going to happen in upcoming elections. Sign up and play here: www.ballotcraft.com.

This is part three of our four-part series analyzing Ballotcraft’s market data during the first Republican Presidential Debate. We’re looking at how a savvy investor could use this information to their advantage in the future.

This post will take a look at one of the current frontrunners in Iowa, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Walker entered the debate as the closest thing to a favorite on the Ballotcraft market, trading at just over 26 points at 9:00 PM. And for the majority of the debate it appeared as though it would stay that way, as his price stayed between 30 and 35 from 9:20 to 10:20, giving him a healthy margin over his challengers. In fact, Walker maintained at least a double-digit lead over the rest of the pack in that timespan, with his lead topping 20 points several times. However, just before the third commercial break, a chink appeared in Walker’s armor as he fielded a question on Iran. Though his own market value was only slightly decreasing, his lead over the field was dropping dramatically. Most peculiarly, his answer was not any weaker than those which had given him the lead, so his sudden weakness could not be blamed on a serious blunder as Trump’s could have been.

Walker’s Lead Over Next Candidate

Instead, the collapse in Walker’s lead was most likely due to a series of mediocre, tepidly-received answers which failed to distinguish him from the showier candidates on the stage. Walker’s lead was at 16.2 points before his uninspired Iran answer, and it left so little of an impression on the traders that by the time he spoke again his lead was below 7, his lowest of the entire night. Unfortunately for Walker his next few opportunities (questions on the Black Lives Matter movement and the Russian cyber-attack) were largely squandered and his lead completely vanished, culminating in a 4 point deficit to Senator Rand Paul by 10:50. And though a more personal answer on his relationship with God was able to restore Walker’s lead, that too vanished as he delivered yet another “aggressively normal” (his words, not mine) response as his closing statement.

How This Should Impact Your Strategy: Simply put, don’t bet on Walker to win a debate so long as he remains a more or less boring debater. He says all the right things and I’d be pretty darn surprised if stock in his ability to win the nomination ever drop significantly after a debate, but it’s even harder to imagine it jumping up because of his oratorical powers. Keeping your money invested in Walker during a debate will be a sound strategy, but don’t count on it if you need to quickly gain ground in your league.

Noah Lieberman is the founder of election forecasting website PollingLab. Click here to see more of his analysis of the 2016 election.