Trump’s lead over Harris widens, but is Polymarket accurate?

Donald Trump’s lead over Kamala Harris has grown on Polymarket, a prediction market that allows users to wager on political outcomes. 

As of writing, Trump holds a 55.3% probability of winning the U.S. presidential election, while Harris trails with 44.1%. This approximate 11% gap is the largest since Harris entered the race, reflecting increasing bets on Trump’s potential victory.

Election day is less than 25 days away, and both U.S. presidential candidates have been active on the campaign trail. On Oct. 5, during his speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump hinted at potentially releasing Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht from prison. 

Tesla CEO and vocal Trump supporter Elon Musk appeared at the event, but neither Trump nor Musk made any direct statements about the crypto industry during the event.

Harris has been relatively silent about crypto, but her recent statements about encouraging technologies like AI and digital assets have stirred interest among crypto supporters.

This election season, Polymarket has gained significant traction as bettors have placed large wagers on current events. Polymarket is a decentralized prediction market that allows users to bet on the outcome of real-world events using crypto.

However, Polymarket’s data doesn’t necessarily align with public polling, where Harris has been shown to lead or remain competitive in some national surveys, according to to The Hill.

Is Polymarket accurate?

Jacob King, an analyst at WhaleWire, raised doubts about the reliability of Polymarket’s predictions.

In a post on X, King argued that Polymarket’s data may not accurately reflect the U.S. electorate because many crypto bettors lean right politically, skewing the odds in Trump’s favor. 

King also noted that Polymarket is limited to U.S. citizens, thus excluding foreign or VPN users. This restriction hinders the platform’s ability to gauge authentic American voter sentiment.

Polymarket is not allowed in the U.S. due to regulatory restrictions. It operates prediction markets that are considered unregistered binary options trading, which violates U.S. securities laws.

Recently, a U.S. District Court ruled in favor of the Kalshi prediction market, overturning a CFTC ban on political event betting in the U.S. However, the CFTC filed an emergency motion to delay the ruling, potentially jeopardizing Kalshi’s future. 

Despite the legal victory and a potential shift towards platforms like Polymarket being allowed in the U.S., concerns about the impact of such markets on public confidence in elections persist.