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Trump Leads Harris on Polymarket as Elon Musk Calls Platform ‘More Accurate Than Polls’
- Following Elon Musk’s appearance at a Trump campaign rally on Saturday, the former president has surged to an 8% lead over Democratic rival Kamala Harris on Polymarket.
- Musk jumped up and down and spoke at the rally, declaring himself to be “dark MAGA”.
- Despite trailing on Polymarket’s headline odds, Harris still leads in Nevada and several other key battleground states — Nevada has gone to the party which won the presidency in almost 90% of elections since 1900.
Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has pulled out to an imposing 8% lead over Kamala Harris on the blockchain-based prediction market, Polymarket. This big bump in support for Trump comes after the world’s richest man and Trump’s dork-in-chief, Elon Musk, campaigned with the former president over the weekend at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Musk declared himself to be “dark MAGA”, widely reinterpreted as “dork MAGA”.
Despite leading the headline odds on Polymarket, Trump still trails Harris in Nevada. This could be significant as Nevada is considered a bellwether state; since 1900 the party which has won Nevada has gone on to win the presidency almost 90% of the time.
Following Trump’s surge on Polymarket, Musk took to X / Twitter to tout the value of the prediction market’s odds, saying they’re more accurate than traditional polls since participants gamble real money on the outcome. However there’s no evidence to support this claim and there is some reason to believe the odds could be skewed towards Trump.
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Polymarket Odds See Huge Surge for Trump
Since Musk’s appearance at the Trump rally on October 5, Trump’s odds on Polymarket have just continued to surge. The day after his appearance Musk tweeted that Trump was up by 3%, claiming this was more accurate than traditional polling:
Since then, Trump’s odds have continued to improve, at the time of writing on Tuesday morning AEDT he’s up by around 8%.
What Does It All Mean?
Is Polymarket more accurate than traditional polls? Well, it’s possible — but there isn’t really any good evidence to support the claim.
With Polymarket being a crypto-based platform, used almost exclusively by people with a keen interest in crypto, it could skew the betting in favour of Trump since he’s been more vocally supportive of the crypto industry than Harris.
In addition to looking at the headline odds, it’s also useful to take a look at some of the state-by-state odds, especially since the election will likely come down to the results in a few key battleground states.
According to Polymarket, the races in Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan, in particular, are really close — with Harris currently slightly ahead in all three. Given that Nevada has so often correctly predicted the winner of the presidential election, Harris’ narrow lead there seems significant.
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Having said that, Ohio also has a solid record of predicting the presidency — the party that won Ohio has also won the presidency 91% of the time since 1980. What does Polymarket say about Ohio right now I hear you ask? Well, Trump has something of a lead at the moment — he’s currently up 93% to Harris’ 7%.
Trump’s surge on Polymarket suggests he might be gaining some momentum, but with so many states still so close and so many traditional polls putting Harris ahead, all we can really say is that it still looks like this year’s presidential election in the US is going to be a very tight race.
Author
Jody McDonald
Jody is a Brisbane-based freelance writer who specialises in writing about business, technology, and the future of work.
