Despite recent polls favoring Harris, Trump's chances of winning have increased significantly on Polymarket

Over the weekend, Donald Trump’s odds on prediction market platform Polymarket surged from 44% to 49% (currently 48%), while rival Kamala Harris’s odds dropped from 54% to 49%. More than $630 million has been bet on the outcome of the US election, with millions more users betting on swing states and other related outcomes on smaller markets. Curiously, Trump’s lead on Polymarket has increased even as recent polls have shown Harris’ chances are better. The latest poll from Rasmussen Research, a company accused of having a conservative bias, shows Harris leading in the key swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania. RealClearPolitics’ national polls show Harris’ average support up 1.5 points, while The Economist’s polls show her up 2.7 points. Other prediction markets have yet to reflect this phenomenon, with Betfair, the second-largest prediction market, with about $67 million in bets, giving Harris about 5 percentage points ahead of Trump. PredictIt, one of the sites available to U.S. residents, with $34 million in bets, gives Harris about a 10-point lead over Trump. Mathematical models also show Harris continuing to lead. FiveThirtyEight founder and Polymarket consultant Nate Silver's election prediction model gives Harris a 53.5% chance of winning, compared to Trump's 45.9%, with the latter rising 0.7% over the past two days as his Polymarket odds have increased by about 5%. According to Silver, the race is "...basically 50-50, but Harris has a slightly stronger hand." The Economist predicts Harris will win 272 electoral votes, while Trump will get 266. Nate Cohn, chief political analyst and polling director for The New York Times, recently spoke about the polls for this campaign in an interview, saying: "In May, Trump was leading by 5 points in key states. Now, Harris is leading by 2 points, so the gap is huge, 7 points. We found that Harris's support has increased significantly among young people, non-white voters and women voters, while Harris's support has increased less significantly among men and white voters, but it has still improved." Data shows that Polymarket's open interest positions have recently recovered from a sharp drop earlier last week, which was the largest single-day drop in the platform's history. This month, more than 40,000 users have joined the site, which should be noted that the site prohibits US residents from trading on its platform. (The Block)