This morning, following a wellspring of reports about Joe Biden’s declining mental acuity, it became a very good time to be a Kamala Harris supporter. It’s been five days since Biden’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump, when he trailed off, got confused by simple questions, and could not for the life of him keep his mouth closed. His handlers have been trying to quell the calls for Biden to step down ever since he stepped off the stage — first, by saying that he’s fine, get over it; and then, by telling doubters they have no say. Then, starting Tuesday afternoon, there was a surge on political-betting markets against Biden, and that Kamala Harris would replace him as the Democratic nominee. What is going on?
On Wednesday morning, Harris overtook Biden on political-betting market PredictIt — one of the world’s largest off-shore, anything-goes political-betting markets — as the more likely Democratic nominee. That only accelerated following a New York Times report of Biden telling an ally that his next few public appearances were crucial, with her odds spiking above 50 percent. (The White House has since denied the report, calling it “absolutely false.”)
The momentum for Harris had been building since noon the previous day, when Biden’s odds of being named the Democratic nominee fell below 50 percent on the bookmaker. On Polymarket, another betting site, the odds of Biden dropping out rose as high as 79 percent. At the same time, political bettors on PredictIt sent Harris’s odds rising as high as 40 percent during a surge of trading, where 52,000 futures contracts betting on her exchanged hands by midmorning, nearly as many as the 71,700 for Biden. It was her best showing so far, and reflected a somewhat more informed political market that was, just a few days ago, hoping that Gavin Newsom would replace Biden in November. (One reason: Harris would probably have access to the millions of dollars already raised.)
Look — I cover a lot of bonkers markets. These kinds of bets are something like crypto or meme stocks for political nerds. When you have about 50,000 contracts trading hands in a single day, that would very charitably be called shallow — in dollar amounts, the absolute maximum that traded would be around $20,000, and that’s if every bet was at the maximum price. Not only is that very small, it shows how easily this market could be gamed by a single person. Rutgers statistics professor Harry Crane has pointed out that fairly common betting strategies for covering losses could explain why there were differences between some markets — exactly the kind of thing that could distort what the real odds are. It’s not far-fetched to say that bets on Harris are no more meaningful than Barron Trump’s aborted cryptocurrency. But then again, maybe somebody will hit the jackpot.
This post was updated to reflect Harris’ rising odds past 50 percent on Wednesday morning.
