- Former President Donald Trump now boasts a significant lead over Vice President Kamala Harris on Polymarket.
- The bets, however, have raised manipulation concerns.
- Harris may be struggling to engage a core demographic that may be pivotal in the coming election.
Polygon-based prediction market Polymarket has risen to prominence during the 2024 U.S. election cycle, as proponents argue it is more reliable than polls. However, the platform is not infallible.
Recently, odds on the platform have strongly suggested that former President Donald Trump is more likely to win over Vice President Kamala Harris come November 2024. The bets behind Trump’s recent lead, however, have raised questions of potential manipulation.
Polymarket’s U.S. Election Odds Compromised?
Former President Donald Trump now boasts a significant lead over Vice President Kamala Harris on Polymarket. According to the platform’s data at the time of writing, Trump has a 59.9% chance of winning the election compared to a 40.1% chance of a Harris win, representing a staggering 19.9% lead.
Polymarket’s odds tell a widely different story from traditional polls. For context, FiveThirtyEight‘s national polls place Harris ahead of Trump with 48.5% compared to 46%.
Polymarket’s recent and wide divergence from traditional polls has unsurprisingly garnered significant attention and pushed observers to take a deeper look at the data.
One such observer, prominent crypto analyst “Fozzy,” found that a single entity has recently accumulated Trump bets on Polymarket totaling $26 million through four different accounts.
"The betting pattern of each account is very similar and when one account stops another picks up. There is very little overlap within each account suggesting they are all the same entity," the analyst wrote, adding, "Not to mention the deposits are very similar. All flow comes from Kraken in the form of 500k or 1m deposits."
The findings have sparked a flurry of speculation about whether a Trump supporter was trying to skew the odds or whether a Harris supporter was trying to hedge their bets.
While the motives for these bets remain anyone’s guess, they come at a time when recent polls suggest Harris may be struggling to engage a core demographic that may be pivotal in the coming election, which looks set to be a tight race.
Black Men Leaning Trump?
Per a recent New York Times and Siena nationwide poll, about 20% of black men plan to vote for Trump over Harris, with another 10% planning not to vote at all. In an effort to reach out to these groups of voters, the vice president recently released an economic plan for black men that heavily featured crypto and marijuana.
Specifically, Harris asserted that she would support a crypto regulatory framework that protected investors. At the same time, she vowed that she would legalize marijuana at the federal level.
On the Flipside
- The motive behind the single entity piling $26 million into bets on Trump remains unknown.
- Harris had led Trump on Polymarket for most of September 2024.
Why This Matters
With Polymarket’s newfound popularity, data from the platform now helps shape public opinion. Still, recent findings in the U.S. 2024 elections market highlight that, like traditional polls, the platform is not infallible.
Read this for more on Polymarket:
Polymarket Betters Are Overwhelmingly Losing Money: Here’s Why
Coinbase is turning up the heat in its hunt for internal documents from the U.S. SEC. Find out more:
Coinbase Intensifies Hunt for SEC Docs with Summary Judgment Request
