Kamala Harris’ Chances of Winning Election Plunge in Prediction Market

Kamala Harris’ chances of winning the election in November have plunged, according to an online betting platform.
Polymarket, funded partly by longtime Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel, gave the vice president a 49.8 percent chance of winning on October 4, to Trump’s 49.6 percent.
However, three days later, on October 7, her chances fell to 45.8 percent, while Trump’s soared to 54 percent. As of Tuesday, Harris’ chances stand at 46.1 percent to Trump’s 53.3 percent.
Trump’s odds on Monday were his best against the Democratic ticket since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris on July 21. The former president’s odds peaked one week earlier when he was given a 67 percent chance of defeating Biden. Meanwhile, as recently as October 4, the odds of either Trump or Harris winning were evenly matched on Polymarket.
However, Trump’s chances surged following a wave of bets in his favor. Polymarket’s odds are driven by “collective wisdom” from bettors, rather than external factors such as polling data.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns via email for comment.
According to pollster Nate Silver, who serves as an advisor at Polymarket, the recent surge in bets for a Trump can be attributed to a combination of market boredom and speculative trading.
“A couple of people have asked me what’s behind this, and my theory is that there isn’t much,” Silver wrote in his newsletter on Monday. “Sometimes market sentiment has a mind of its own, and that can especially happen when traders are bored and angsty because they’re in the doldrums.”
He added that while people may have placed bets in the past to try and sway public opinion, that’s less likely to happen now because it’s too costly to keep bets artificially high for long periods.
As a result, most of the bets seem to come from either genuine Trump supporters or traders looking to make a profit, Silver explained.
Most polling trackers show that Harris is ahead of Trump. FiveThirtyEight’s poll tracker puts Harris 2.6 points ahead, while Silver’s tracker puts her 3 points ahead.
However, according to Silver, although Harris may be leading Trump in the popular vote, the Electoral College remains a toss-up, with some forecasts, including Polymarket’s, showing that she is not set to win the Electoral College.
Several other online betting platforms show that Harris and Trump have roughly even chances of winning the White House in November.
Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight’s model currently shows Harris is predicted to win the popular vote and the Electoral College with 279 votes to Trump’s 259.
The Economist’s forecast shows that Harris is predicted to win 273 electoral votes to Trump’s 265, while Silver’s forecast put Harris on 281 electoral votes to Trump’s 256.