Over the weekend, Donald Trump's odds on decentralized prediction market platform Polymarket have spiked from 44% to 49%, placing the former President in a virtual dead heat with his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, whose odds likewise plummeted from 54% to 49%, though she holds a minute lead. Polymarket users have bet over $630,000,000 on the outcome of the national race, with millions more in smaller markets for swing states and other related outcomes.
Curiously, Trump's lead on Polymarket has increased despite recent polls appearing favorable for Harris's chances. The latest polls from Rasmussen Research, which has been accused of having a conservative bias, show Harris leading in critical swing states Michigan and Pennsylvania. RealClearPolitics' average of national polls has Harris up 1.5 points, while the Economist's polling average has Harris up 2.7 points.
Moreover, other prediction markets have yet to reflect Polymarket's Trump bump: Betfair, the second-largest such market with about $67,000,000 in bets, has Kamala up by around 5 points compared to Trump. PredictIt, with $34 million on the line, has an even wider gap, with Harris ahead of Trump by around 10 points.
Mathematical models likewise show Harris continuing to hold her lead. FiveThirtyEight founder and Polymarket adviser Nate Silver's election forecast model shows Harris with a 53.5% chance of winning the electoral college compared to Trump's 45.9%, with the latter gaining .7 percentage points over the past two days, as his odds on Polymarket have increased by about 5%. According to Silver, the race is "...basically 50/50, though Harris has the ever-so-slightly stronger hand." The Economist's forecast predicts Harris winning 272 electoral votes to Trump's 266.
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Nate Cohn, chief political analyst and head of polling at the New York Times, addressed the race's polls in a recent interview with The New Yorker, stating, "In May, we had Trump ahead by five points across the battleground states. Right now, we have Harris ahead by two, so it’s a big seven-point swing. And we show outsized gains for Harris among young and nonwhite voters, and women, and we show smaller gains, but still some improvement, for Harris among men and white voters."
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