While the Democratic National Convention was Vice President Kamala Harris’ time to shine, it was former President Donald Trump who actually came out on top, according to one metric. Trump has gained ground over Vice President Kamala Harris in at least one betting market, following a surprising boost amid the ongoing Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago.
Trump, who was trailing Harris in prediction markets just a week ago, has reclaimed his frontrunner status on PolyMarket. As of Wednesday, traders gave him a 52% chance of winning the 2024 presidential election, while Harris’ odds fell to 47%. Last week, the site had Harris leading Trump with a 51% to 46% advantage, Fox Business reports.
On Wednesday, Trump saw a rise in his odds on BetUS, though he was still slightly behind Harris with an implied probability of 52.38% compared to her 54.55%. Despite this, Trump was gaining ground. On PredictIt, where Harris has maintained a lead for weeks, her odds fell by one point to 55% on Wednesday, while Trump stood at 48%.
BetUS director of public relations Tim Williams told FOX Business the market move Wednesday occurred as a fresh wave of betting action came in on Trump. “My pure speculation might be that the betting public believes that having to revise down payroll growth by 818,000 jobs — that’s 818,000 fewer jobs than reported earlier — could hurt Harris,” Williams said. He suggested that the rising betting volume on Trump might be influenced by speculation that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was considering endorsing or aligning with Trump.
Rutgers University statistics professor Harry Crane, a prediction markets expert, told FOX Business that Trump’s recent surge on PolyMarket is “pretty significant movement.” Crane noted that there was no clear explanation for the rise other than the speculation that RFK Jr. could drop out and endorse Trump, which happened Friday. “I’m not aware of anything new that’s happened on Trump’s front in the past week that would warrant him coming back in any kind of drastic fashion,” Crane said.
Model update:
Trump 52.5%
Harris 40.3%Still some uncertainty because of RFK decision and time until the election.
Significant market moves in the past week. Likely a combination of:
1. Harris releasing economic policies (unpopular)
2. More Harris media exposure.
3. RFK… pic.twitter.com/x91x6GAeXR— Harry Crane (@HarryDCrane) August 21, 2024
Acknowledging that he was commenting anecdotally, the professor said, “I think that the most obvious things that I see is that Harris has released some economic proposals, and she’s answered a few questions more than before. And maybe those haven’t been so great for her.”
Before bringing Kennedy on stage with him Friday night in Glendale, Ariz., Trump described his political movement as being “welcoming” to Democrats, the New York Post reported. “Our movement is not about Democrat versus Republican,” he said. “It’s about patriotism and common sense. That’s why we’re welcoming support for millions and millions of disaffected Democrats. And they are joining like wildfire now. We’re welcoming the support from millions of disaffected Democrats, independents, moderates, old-fashioned liberals who still believe in little things like borders.”
Earlier, Trump said, “For the past 16 months, Bobby has run an extraordinary campaign. I know because he went after me a couple of times — I didn’t like it.” He added: “His candidacy has inspired millions and millions of Americans, raised critical issues that have been too long ignored in this country and brought together people from across the political spectrum in a positive campaign grounded in the American values of his father, Robert Kennedy, a great man, and his uncle, President John F Kennedy. And I know that they are looking down right now, and they are very, very proud of Bobby. I’m proud of Bobby.”