Trump to pass Harris?
478
Ṁ340k
resolved Aug 21
Resolved
YES

Resolves YES if Trump is listed as more likely to win than Harris at any point from now until the beginning of election day on https://electionbettingodds.com/

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Dang, I’m actually quite surprised. What is Polymarket doing, bro

Seems like it's being juiced for Trump, accompanied by a twitter campaign indicating that all has swung against Harris since she released her economic policy. Search "Polymarket" on Twitter. It's all over. Messaging. Worth the price for someone I guess.

Oh so very odd that electoral college betting on the same site does not align. Electoral College D positions on Poly collectively lead R positions by 12 percentage points.

Oh god let's not be like Trump supporters who declared Polymarket to be "fake news" as soon as it showed Trump behind.

There is no secret campaign or dark money fund to push up either candidates' odds on a crypto website. It's just people making bets, with many idiots on both sides.

Plus we just got more info about RFK's intentions, which are likely slightly negative for Harris.

@Joshua Oh I don't think the movement is due to any kind of secret campaign or whatever, but I'm just surprised that it so rapidly de-tethered from polling models, especially in the absence of any real event? I'm not sure the economic policy stuff will affect public sentiment much (and almost certainly not in a direction that benefits Trump) so is it just... PR shifting? Vibes shifting?

(also I don't really think prediction markets are accurate to within 5% regardless)

RFK got much more likely to drop out and endorse Trump, and even if you think that this is like a 0.2% effect, the election is very close and that should impact things by a few percent. Trump won the tipping point by 0.7% in 2016 and Biden won the tipping point in 2020 by 0.6%.

Oh hmmm... I guess I didn't follow that story closely enough. The vibe I got was that Shanahan just kind of mentioned it as a possibility but not that there was a meaningful shift in the odds that RFK would endorse Trump and drop out. But now re-reading it, it does seem like perhaps they are in fact considering doing so more seriously? Hard to say, I guess I thought that was already priced in.

My read is that a campaign will not publicly admit they're considering dropping out until they're really strongly considering dropping out. See: Biden.

| Oh god let's not be like Trump supporters who declared Polymarket to be "fake news" as soon as it showed Trump behind.


@Joshua The timing is suspicious, so suspicion is warranted. There was nothing in the economic plan released last night that would have elicited this response and there was a general consensus that Trump would only get a 1% bump from Kennedy dropping out. That leaves what this morning looks like a coordinated effort to motivate crypto owners to change their positions on crypto prediction markets by fabricating a tax on unrealized gains.

where was the consensus that trump would only get a 1% bump from kennedy dropping out?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/08/rfk-jr-third-party-effect-are-now-hurting-trump/ Based on the reported and heavily rounded figures from this article that stated 50% of Kennedy's voters leaned towards Trump 20% leaned towards Harris.

30% of RFK's 4.9% as of Aug 21st is 1.47%. Given that these people aren't already hardened supporters, lets just call it 1%.

a 1% shift in the margin in the presidential race would be a much, much higher change than 1% in the prediction markets. just because both of those are percentages doesn't mean they're measuring the same thing. A 1% shift would have been enough to flip the result of the presidential race in both 2016 and 2020.

A 1% shift in polling that hasn't happened yet would still leave Harris with a significant margin. Maybe you're right and it shocked prediction markets back towards an even split.

@SemioticRivalry I think there's very little chance that Trump gets a true 1% bump due to JFK dropping out, I'll be honest. I think something like 0.5% nationally and maybe 0.2% in swing states is more reasonable, but it's not even necessarily clear that him dropping out would help Trump at all.

I think a 1% shift in the popular vote margin right now would actually translate to much more than a 5% shift in odds. Let's call it 10%. Given that some of that is already baked in as a possiblity and RFK pulling out is not definite, just strongly suggested, I can see a 5% shift on Poly yesterday based on the RFK news as justifiable, even if I don't agree. It's the entire movement from Harris to Trump starting last week - on little new info for such a big swing - that strikes me as odd. I agree that it's fair to say we can't possibly know everyone's motivation or reasoning for investing in Trump in that market.

It's worth noting that those who want to invest in a Trump win on Poly can buy the viable electoral margin positions (up to winning all 7 swing states) for 35 cents right now, instead of 52.

Okay, but @ChrisSnyder RFK would probably be getting only about 2-3% of the vote at the election, likely. Let's say 3%, for the sake of discussion. That 3% would have to break 66-33 (in swing states) to Trump for him to benefit by a full 1% shift. I don't think that's a reasonable assumption at all of the behavior of third party voters. Also, many (most?) of those third party voters might not vote at all, or if they do, vote for a different third party candidate.

Oh wait, guys, why are we even arguing about this. I forgot! If RFK drops out, Kamala DEFINITELY locks up the Third Party KEY
https://www.newsweek.com/allan-lichtman-rfk-kamala-harris-kennedy-drop-out-2024-election-trump-1942253

@benshindel I agree that a 1% popular vote shift due to RFK exiting would be on the very high end of the possible range. But I can at least hear the argument, and can understand an accompanying shift on Poly yesterday as a result. I do agree that in reality the effect would (likely will ) be less.

Re Lichtman - ah yes, it is written! :)

i think my median is somewhere around 0.5%, but it's totally plausible for that to shift markets by 5%. the election is very close right now.

The Nate Silver model on August 14th had Kamala +2.5 nationally and 56.7% chance at presidency. The model on August 16th had Kamala +2.1 nationally and 54.2% to win the presidency. 5% shift in margin from a 0.4% shift in the popular vote.

https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1823886986937024767/

https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1824567058954162415

That's fair, although, the polymarket swing was actually like 8%. Also, I think the Silver Bulletin model is currently giving less weight to swing state polls than national (relative to in Nov) as it's still far from election, so that correlation might not be as strong closer to the election

does this resolve @jim

bought Ṁ13 YES

Yes, because it is Trump being listed as more likely to win than Harris. In future I will clarify this scenario explicitly in the resolution criteria.

bought Ṁ25 NO

?

When it was 49.1-49.1 Harris led briefly, then Trump swapped places with her. Pretty sure there is a second decimal place to the odds that's not on the UI which sorts the rankings. Maybe @MaximLott can confirm?

I've unresolved since there's disagreement. And locked so people don't buy NO not realising Trump (debatably) already passed Harris.

Are you basing this on the % or the electoral count?

what "disagreement" is there and by who? the images are clearly sorted by odds of winning, as my earlier comment pointed out

@becauseyoudo based on the %

@diadematus Yes, your point seems like good evidence that it's based on a hidden, higher precision number (which is what one would assume anyway)

In my personal capacity (not as a mod), I'd very strongly request people in general, but especially Jim and people like him, wait before resolving if something weird happens or there's an edge case. Just close the market if you want, post your thoughts, and let them sit for a while. Instantly resolving even if something weird happens will inevitably lead to bad decisions some percent of the time.

the images are clearly sorted by odds of winning, as my earlier comment pointed out

It's not unusual for a list like this to be sorted first by number, and then alphabetically. It's possible (imo likely) it is sorted by a hidden probability, but unless you can find that somewhere in the UI or API I don't think that guess is enough to resolve the market on

Agreed!

Pretty sure there is a second decimal place to the odds that's not on the UI which sorts the rankings. Maybe MaximLott can confirm

we shouldn't resolve markets on pretty sures imo

@jacksonpolack the market is currently tied but Harris is leading...why do you think that is? this is simple logical deduction

@diadematus That someone is trying really hard to buy the perception of a change in polling. I agree that it resolves this market but why not wait for at least a 0.1% difference.

@jacksonpolack Trump passed Harris on the list so market resolved YES 🤷