Kamala Harris’ chances of winning the election have surpassed Donald Trump’s on an online prediction market for the first time in weeks.
As one of the closest races for the White House approaches the finishing line, the vice president overtook the former president by one point on Friday after trailing her Republican opponent since early October, according to PredictIt. The betting platform allows users to trade shares on the outcomes of political and financial events, meaning instead of the data being shown in points, it is shown in cents. It has been called “the most reliable prediction market” by Allan Lichtman, presidential historian and so-called polling “Nostradamus” because of his track record of correctly predicting the winner of presidential elections.
Unlike traditional oddsmakers, who set fixed odds for various outcomes, the site operates as an exchange where prices fluctuate based on user trading activity, reflecting the collective sentiment of its participants.
Newsweek has contacted the campaigns of Harris and Trump out of hours via email for comment on the development.
While Harris may have taken the lead in one prediction platform, however, Trump remains ahead on Polymarket by 15.7 cents as of Saturday morning.
The former president had been increasing his lead over the Democratic nominee since October 5, but as of October 30, the gap between the two candidates has begun to narrow, following a speaker at Trump’s New York rally on October 27 calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and the subsequent fallout from that.
According to aggregates by Bookmakers Review, betting odds have accurately predicted several of the most recent elections, with 77 percent of the expected candidates winning over the last 35 years, including in very close elections, such as Barack Obama’s win against Mitt Romney in 2012, where Obama was given odds of -450, and the 2000 election, where George W. Bush was given odds of -150 and limped over the finish line with 271 Electoral College votes (a candidate needs 270 to win) while losing the popular vote.
The election remains a tossup, according to polling aggregates. FiveThirtyEight has Harris ahead nationally by 1.2 percentage points and its forecast shows Trump has a 51 percent chance of winning. Per FiveThirtyEight’s mode, he currently leads in enough swing states to clinch victory, if polls are correct.
In that scenario, Trump would win 287 Electoral College votes to Harris’ 251, but even a small polling error across the seven swing states could mean either candidate winning in a potential landslide.
Do you have a story Newsweek should be covering? Do you have any questions about this story? Contact LiveNews@newsweek.com.
Read the full article here
