As the race for the White House draws to a close, the Polymarket betting market is showing a growing lead for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris. Of course, it is common knowledge that bookies are rarely wrong
The race for the White House enters the final phase. There are a little more than 1845 days left until the famous first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which since 20 has been the day of holding all presidential elections in the United States of America.
In translation, neither Kamali Harris ni to Donald Trump there is not much time left to win undecided voters over to their side. At the moment, according to a Guardian poll, the Democratic Party candidate has a two percentage point lead over her Republican opponent - 48 percent to 46 percent. Before the supporters of the Democrats open the champagne, this data is not so good news for the "blue" - it shows a decline compared to the four percent advantage, which the vice president of the most powerful country in the world had two weeks earlier.
The fight for key states
The tense situation in the polls has caused nervousness and concern in the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, while Donald Trump is making progress in key states that can decide the outcome of the election: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
In each of these countries, the differences between the candidates are minimal, within the margin of error. The fact that Harris has an advantage of only three-quarters of a percentage point in Nevada and Michigan, while he leads in Pennsylvania by only one percentage point, causes red lights for Democrats.
On the other hand, Trump has a slim advantage in the remaining five key states. If this outcome were to repeat itself on voting day on November 5, it could provide Trump with over 270 electoral votes needed to win and return to the Oval Office.
The only consolation for Harris is that, with the various polls showing conflicting results, it is unlikely that we will see an identical scenario on Election Day.
After celebrity endorsement did not bear fruit as they had hoped (just like in the case of Hillary Clinton), the next tactic that the Kamala Harris campaign uses is the support of the still popular former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
It was known from the start that this presidential election would be the most uncertain in the last few cycles. However, it seems that the Democrats are in a slightly worse situation than they were a few weeks ago, as evidenced by the polls. Why?
The war in Gaza and natural disasters
One of the issues casting a shadow over Kamala Harris' prospects is the intensifying conflict in the Middle East, where Israel's offensive against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite group, threatens to further erode support among Michigan's large Arab community. This community is already unhappy about the White House's support for Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.
On the other hand, Trump is apparently so sure of his victory that he has started organizing rallies in traditional Democratic strongholds like California, Illinois and New York, even though polls show that he has little chance of winning in those states. The move seems like an attempt to project a sense of imminent victory.
With less than a month until voting day, Democratic strategists fear that Harris will not have enough time to recover from the drop in the polls. The deadline was further shortened by two hurricanes -- Helena and Milton -- that hit the southeastern US in recent weeks, distracting Harris from the campaign trail and allowing Trump to make claims about her and Biden and their alleged failure to respond to the disaster.
Should you trust bookmakers?
Most of the articles available on the Internet that talk about the "fall" of Kamala Harris refer to the same source - the Polymarket portal, which on Sunday showed Trump leading by three percent in the betting market.
After the richest man in the world and Trump sympathizer Elon Musk shared the same information, the advantage of the former American president jumped to ten percent.
However, it is important to understand that Polimarket does not conduct any polls and surveys of public opinion. It is a decentralized betting market that works similar to sports betting apps, except that almost anything can be invested here. This year, one of the most popular markets is the one predicting the outcome of the US presidential election.
Polymarket does not rely on research, but on the "collective wisdom" of bookmakers. For example, before Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz as her running mate, Polymarket gave the Minnesota governor a 23 percent chance of being selected for the position. At the same time, bookmakers were confident that Harris would choose California Governor Josh Shapiro as his running mate - who led on this platform with a 41 percent advantage over Volz.
Walz took advantage of Shapiro in the betting market only a few hours before it was officially announced that the governor of Minnesota will enter the campaign with Kamala Harris.
Also, the impartiality of Polymarket is called into question by the fact that one of the investors of this platform is the controversial billionaire and longtime supporter of Donald Trump, Peter Thiel, who invested about 70 million dollars in Polymarket.
A perfect recipe for conspiracy theories
But maybe accuracy doesn't even matter. As Wired writes, coefficients from Polymarket are already being used as proof that Trump will emerge as the winner. On the other hand, the Democrats on that platform also greatly celebrate the chances of Kamala Harris to win the popular vote (total number of votes). All of this has the potential to legitimize bookies' predictions as valid evidence for conspiracy theorists questioning the outcome of the election.
"Right before the winner is announced, Trump and his fans will say that Polymarket knew the truth and they silenced him." It doesn't matter if it's true. It doesn't matter if it makes sense in those few hours after the election is announced," says Mike Rothschild, an author who writes about conspiracy theories for Wired. "People will be looking for any evidence that there was theft, that there was manipulation, that there was a blue box of votes thrown in at three in the morning." And if they can't find it, they will invent it."
"blue wall"
The clearest path to victory for Kamala Harris is through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states known as part of the "blue wall." If he wins all three, which together bring 44 electoral votes, along with all the other states won by Biden in 2020, he will reach the required number of 270 electoral votes to win the election.
Hillary Clinton "fell" in these three states in 2016. The "blue wall" states include a total of 18 federal states and the District of Columbia. Democrats won every presidential election from 1992 to 2020 in these states. The only Republican candidate who won the presidential election during this period was George Bush, who did so in 2000 and 2004.
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