Donald Trump began to bounce back in betting markets after a surprising poll caused his election odds to drop sharply. The release of a Des Moines Register poll on Saturday night stirred up the markets, as it revealed Trump trailing Kamala Harris in the traditionally Republican state of Iowa.
It prompted a surge in bets on Harris to win the US election, leading to a major drop in Trump’s odds across various betting platforms, including Kalshi, Polymarket, and Predictit. Harris briefly surpassed Trump as the top choice for the White House on Kalshi. By Sunday, however, the markets appeared to be adjusting, with Trump’s odds beginning to climb once again.
Trump Rebounds in Betting Markets
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By Sunday afternoon, Trump regained his position as the favorite on Kalshi, holding a 52 percent chance of winning, while Harris was at 48 percent. Harris’s lead on Predictit, which had surged to eight points following the Iowa poll, dropped back to just four points.
Polymarket data showed Trump up by eight points after his lead had slipped to six. The Real Clear Politics betting average reflected a nine-point lead for Trump.
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For some time, Trump had been gaining strongly across various betting platforms, but earlier this week, money started shifting toward Harris.
Then on Saturday, a Des Moines Register poll revealed Harris leading Trump 47 percent to 44 percent among likely voters in Iowa, a traditionally conservative state.
Ann Selzer, who led the survey, has earned the titles “Iowa’s Polling Queen” and “the best pollster in politics” due to her decades of conducting polls for the Des Moines Register.
Iowa, which hasn’t supported a Democrat in a presidential election since Barack Obama in 2012, was previously considered by the Harris campaign as a straightforward GOP victory this cycle.
Even before the Iowa poll was released, Trump’s odds had already been declining in betting markets.
Between October 29 and November 1, his chances on betting platforms Bet365 and Paddy Power dropped from 66.7 percent to 63.6 percent.
Polls Show Close Race
Earlier this week, Trump had led Harris by a considerable margin of 60.6 percent to 38.1 percent on the Real Clear Politics average of betting markets. Although polls indicate a close race, with results nearly tied, betting markets had consistently shown a clear edge for Trump for several weeks.
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The shift began on October 27, when a comedian at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York made an offensive joke about Puerto Rico, sparking backlash.
Kalshi, the first legal US online platform for election predictions, has already handled $92 million in bets on the 2024 election.
In 2016, polls suggested an easy victory for Hillary Clinton over Trump, but they missed the mark. While betting markets have historically been effective in forecasting election results, like the polls, they were inaccurate in 2016.
As far back as 1924, the Wall Street Journal observed, “Betting odds are generally taken as the best indicator of probable results in presidential campaigns.”
Back then, bookmakers would send representatives to attend candidates’ speeches and adjust odds based on audience reactions, the newspaper reported.
According to a study by economists Paul Rhode and Koleman Strumpf, betting markets accurately predicted the outcome in 14 of 15 presidential elections from 1884 to 1940, with only one surprise upset.
However, in 1948 the betting markets, like the polls, got it spectacularly wrong when they only gave President Harry Truman a roughly one in 10 chance of winning.
