Donald Trump’s Odds Of Election Victory Have Suddenly Gone Into Free Fall
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are entering the final days of their race for the White House, with Tesla billionaire Elon Musk warning of a "financial emergency."
Trump, who recently declared himself the "crypto president," saw his odds of victory on the crypto-based Polymarket prediction platform climb through October, peaking at 67%.
Now, as investors begin to panic about the Federal Reserve, Trump's odds of victory have gone into free fall, moving toward a 50/50 split between Trump and his Democratic Party rival Harris.
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Trump's odds of victory on Polymarket, which uses the USDC dollar-pegged stablecoin to facilitate trading but isn't available to U.S.-based users, have crashed to around 54% over the weekend with just two days to go before Tuesday's election.
Harris has seen her odds increase from 33% to 45% as punters increasingly bet she will win the White House after an Iowa poll carried out by the highly regarded pollster Ann Selzer from the Des Moines Register showed Harris leading Trump by three points among likely voters, though the poll found no clear leader in the race despite Trump winning the state in 2016 and 2020.
On rival prediction platform Kalshi, which last week launched crypto deposits via USDC and is open to U.S. users, the gap between Trump and Harris has narrowed to just four percentage points.
Kalshi users put Trump's odds of victory at 52%, while Harris has a 48% of winning the White House, down from a split of 65% to 35% in Trump's favor at the beginning of this week.
Prediction platform odds, unlike polls, are not a survey of voters but rather an open market that allow users to bet on the expected outcome of all manner of events, from elections to pop culture and sports.
Polymarket has seen just over $3 billion wagered on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election since January, with Trump consistently the favorite among its users who are generally believed to skew younger, male and have an interest in crypto.
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One France-based Polymarket user has bet $30 million on Trump winning the 2024 U.S. presidential election, telling the Wall Street Journal he isn't trying to influence the vote and that his "intent is just making money."
The crypto-based prediction platform Polymarket has surged in popularity in recent months, with those in the crypto community seizing on a successful use case for the technology.
Interest in Polymarket soared over the summer after users bet heavily on president Joe Biden dropping out of the race in early July, weeks ahead of Biden withdrawing from the election.
