Don’t Discount the Message From the Betting Markets
Harris needs something big to jumpstart her campaign. Her upcoming interview with Brett Baier will either put her back in the game or end her chance at victory.
In the days leading up to President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race, he trailed former President Donald Trump in the betting markets by up to 48 points. By August 9, however, less than three weeks after Vice President Kamala Harris had replaced Biden at the top of the ticket, Trump’s advantage had been completely erased.
In the week before the Sept. 10 debate, Trump briefly led the betting markets. However, following his disappointing performance, Harris regained the upper hand.
On Oct. 6, one day after Trump’s triumphant return to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the first assassination attempt, he reclaimed the top spot. Over the past ten days, his lead has increased to 14% in the RealClearPolitics average of betting odds.
Over $1,700,000,000 has already been bet on the outcome of the US presidential election on Polymarket!
Donald Trump's chances of winning are almost 55% pic.twitter.com/e1DEQxP6YF
— Crypto Hunter🥷 (@Cryptohuhterz) October 12, 2024
According to Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey, “the betting markets seem to anticipate polling shifts by somewhere between a few days and a week or so. This data would indicate that Harris can expect more erosion in her standing in the final three weeks before Election Day.”
Given that the election is only three weeks away, the ability to anticipate shifts in voter sentiment up to a week out takes on far greater significance.
Morrissey continued:
What could explain this sudden shift? First off, the U.S. electorate usually has some sort of late preference cascade as voters lock in on their choices. It’s not unusual to see this, although betting markets may make it easier to spot as it happens; sometimes polling only shows it in retrospect. In an environment where net disapproval of the incumbent administration is -14.7 and the net wrong-direction sentiment is as large as -32.9 (the current RCP aggregate scores), a late collapse in the incumbent’s position is scarcely surprising.
Although the changes in presidential polls have not been dramatic over the past couple of weeks, Trump has clearly gained ground in both national and battleground state surveys, while Harris has lost ground. Hence her desperation.
In a weekend panel discussion with ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, former Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus cited Harris’s remarkable statement on “The View” last week as one of the leading catalysts. Asked if there was anything she would have done differently than Biden over the past four years, Harris replied, “there is not a thing that comes to mind.”
This was an extraordinary utterance from an incumbent candidate trying to sell herself as an agent of change.
The View: Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?
Kamala: "There is not a thing that comes to mind." pic.twitter.com/1UB3PHTmBC
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) October 8, 2024
Priebus also pointed to the fact that the Harris campaign’s “feeling of joy in the air” that had helped her (with women especially) is “gone.” It has run its course.
“It’s obvious that there is a leak in the balloon here in the Kamala Harris campaign,” he said.
Raddatz was not amused.
ABC just destroyed Kamala’s whole campaign.
— American AF 🇺🇸 (@iAnonPatriot) October 14, 2024
American Thinker writer Monica Showalter weighed in on Trump’s recent strength in the betting odds on Sunday. Among the explanations she provides for Harris’s recent weakness are her “word salads.” According to Showalter:
[T]here were the word salads — Kamala’s handlers could see the momentum falling, and decided to get her out into the public a bit more, with friendly and jejune interviewers and television appearances — all of which she blew. … She was suddenly doing a lot of them.
I suspect these sank her betting odds more than anything. Young black and Latino voters have told pollsters they want to know more about her and what she plans for the country. All they get in reply is gibberish, or ‘joy,’ like she’s trying to sell them a can of Pepsi. It’s not real joy, see, it’s just what the ad promises — life, love, good health, the works. Been there, done that — and not even young people who weren’t born before those Coke and Pepsi ads promising world peace were around were fooled.
As I wrote on Monday, her refusal (or her inability) to answer questions directly during last week’s “media blitz,” which included the Univision town hall and her disastrous interview with CBS News’ Bill Whitaker, contributed to her loss of support.
The mere act of scheduling a media blitz in the first place signaled the campaign’s desperation. Recognizing that her momentum had stalled, Team Harris hoped a series of media appearances would reset the race. The strategy backfired.
Morrissey agrees. “The only reason to send Harris out on this media blitz would have been to shore up an already eroding position. The betting markets may not even be a leading indicator in that sense, but they have caught the whiff of desperation nonetheless. And as Morrissey’s First Axiom of Dating and Politics states, desperation is not an aphrodisiac.”
Many of us were surprised that Harris had committed to Wednesday evening interview with Fox News chief political anchor Brett Baier, something she would never have agreed to had she been in a stronger position. Although Baier is known for his journalistic integrity, he will nevertheless press Harris for honest answers. If he doesn’t get them, he will at least make it obvious she is dodging/lying.
To be sure, it is a risky venture, particularly so close to the election. But she needs something big to jumpstart her momentum. Her interview with Baier will either put her back in the game or end her chance at victory. Let’s hope it’s the latter.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
She chose Brett Baier because her staff told her is hard on Trump. Her staff obviously didn’t see him after the first assassination attempt. He was now on the Trump team. Kameltoe is walking into a real interview. An interview with someone who will hold her feet to the fire. Watch for the clips that get used in memes and ads.
FKH
I can’t tell you how much I’m hoping you’re right. I would love to see Harris finally asked about the issues that haven’t been discussed yet: China, biological males competing with girls/women, the INSANE amount of grooming that’s clearly taking place in our primary and secondary schools, the ‘transitioning’ of children to include the irreversible damage of puberty blockers on adolescents. Unfortunately, these are all issues that Baier almost entirely (or entirely) ignores on his own program every day. So, I’m not nearly as optimistic as you are.
This won’t help or hurt either candidate unless Harris implodes in spectacular fashion. Wine Moms and minorities do not watch Fox much less Brett’s show
This is true. BUT, these interviews can be turned into powerful sound bites. The mainstream media does this ALL the time to Trump. He had a great interview with Bloomberg yesterday afternoon and clearly came out on top if you watched the whole interview…which almost no one does. The networks, though, took excerpts of that interview and turned into a Harris campaign ad which they aired as the 1st segment of their nightly news casts. ABC News was notably bad. That’s what they can do with an otherwise positive sit-down for Trump. If Harris is…..Harris, the campaign commercials (and social media clips) will write themselves for the Trump campaign. This is why Harris avoided the media as much as she has.
If she messes up, the takeaways will be all over social media.
The softball-bar has been set SO low that Baier doesn’t have to do much to appear balanced and objective. I will be surprised if Fox management allows Baier to press her very much.
I’ve actually seen Brett Baier press people pretty hard. I hope he does that tonight.
Paradoxically, actually doing a real interview might do her some good. Going only with softball questioners probably hurts her more than it helps. Going on Joe Rogan simultaneously with Trump for a 3h joint interview would be best, because Rogan won’t accept any word salad or dodging answers from either of them. He will keep asking a question until he gets a real answer.
About ten minutes into the Fox interview, once the Word Salad Shooter™ is out of lettuce, Kamala do what she knows best and what has always worked for her… she’ll crawl under the table and soon Baier’s eyes will roll back in his head… fade to black
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omgw-g1gVnM Every registered voter should be required to watch this shocking exchange between Harmeet Dhillon and Tucker Carlson. Almost two hours long but it is the unbelievable story of Kamala Harris.
Since I cannot trust the polls (their sampling adjustments are too suspect) I have been placing great faith in the betting market. 14% lead for Trump gives me some hope. I believe that 14% puts the result outside the reach of the best ballot box stuffing. However, we are still 3 weeks away and even here in Texas, I have a doctor-friend and a lawyer-friend who would not vote for Trump if the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, and the ghost of George Washington endorsed him. So, the ‘Orange Man Bad’ effect is still very powerful – logic and evidence will not sway them and they are theoretically educated men. There are millions more of their ilk out there..
So I remain concerned. The Democrats surely have one more “October Surprise” they’re saving for next week. However, can they actually have anything left that would hurt Trump?
That’s a fair point. The question is how many of the undecided (they do exist and are not uniformly stupid/ignorant as many claim) will come to terms with the reality of a choice to stay home or to choose between DJT who they may personally revile but has a good record of governance and Harris who is by a long way the most far left, socialist candidate in history on election day?
Mark Halperin was on Tucker last night. It was a fascinating (and lengthy) interview. In it, he speaks in detail about public polling vs private polling and why the latter is historically much more accurate than the former. The tl;dr is money. The networks simply don’t have the money to spend to get accurate polling, the kind that can more reliably answer the question you ask. This dynamic has worsened in more recent years because the media biz is largely in financial disarray. The campaigns do have that money, and they spend it. He goes into detail about what shortcuts/assumptions the public pollsters have to take and why that’s problematic. As I said, it’s interesting and explained in a way I had never heard/read before.
He said that private polling – left & right – has Trump 2/3-points better than the public polling does, and even more in some states.
Yeah. I think the question is does DjT break the 48/49% ‘barrier’ he seems to have? We know that about 35% of the electorate is gonna crawl over broken glass to vote for him. Down side is about the same number, maybe a few more, will.do so to vote against him.
There’s another 14% +/- who will vote for DJT and another 14% +/- that will vote for Harris. That leaves a few % to swing the election. It seems as if the polls are showing a break towards Trump by the remaining undecided. Those % can easily change if a segment of voters expected to vote simply stay home or go 3rd Party. Another possibility is under/over performing with those groups. If Trump pulls in 30% of black males he likely wins. If he only pulls in 10% of them he is likely to fail.
I feel pretty good about the odds right now. Obviously nothing is certain here but it this way, I would far rather have Trump’s # and current position/momentum than be stuck with what Harris has today.
Mark Halperin (a former MSNBC contributor) says there will be a mental health epidemic in America if Trump wins. He told Tucker Carlson that tens of millions of Americans will be impacted. Isn’t that ridiculous? … As of 1:30 the RCP average in the betting market shows Trump up 16.4%!
We hope the bookies know something about turnout that we don’t. Turnout is hard to poll.
The errors and unknown variables in the election (mostly uncertainty in male v female turnout) are at least 10x larger than the margin between the candidates in the swing state poll averages. This means the contest is statistically tied. Anything can happen.
The Democrat party and the mainstream media are mirroring Karl Marx’s approach to competition. A 1928 biography of Marx written by German Marxist philosopher Otto Ruhle, although otherwise laudatory of Marx, criticized his tactics in seeking to become recognized as the leading socialist thinker of his time. He states that Marx was dishonest and used ad hominem attacks as he sought to disparage his intellectual rivals.
Ballots are notorious for not responding to polls. They are too busy being generated by way of bloated voter rolls and then harvested, bundled and scanned multiple times. This process may take several days depending on what the betting markets are saying.
I thought it was an ominous sign out of Michigan that not even 2-weeks after ballots were mailed out in the state, 40% of the ballots sent to the city of Detroit residents had been returned. There is NO WAY that happened organically particularly considering HALF of the residents of Detroit are functionally illiterate. That’s the result of a well-oiled ballot-harvesting machine.
Fingers crossed. Hard to imagine this ending well for Harris, but Fox is hardly pro-Trump. It would be surprising, but not shocking, to see her tossed softballs and given a kindly edit ala 60 minutes.
And she’ll get *some* credit just for doing an interview that will be perceived as hostile.
Harris’s biggest problem is Trump’s biggest strength. Like him or not people generally see Trump as genuine. No one believes a word out of “I have a Glock” Harris. She just comes off as totally fake.
Yeah I would definitely ask what model, when purchased and then follow up with a question about its legality given CA’s weird firearm laws and certain make/model not being certified as CA compliant. As of this am the CA AG website states that
No US manufacture Glock is CA compliant
Not are Gen I, Gen II, Gen IV or Gen V.
Unless Harris has a basic Gen III model, unmodified with aftermarket fixtures, it ain’t legal in CA.
She misspoke, she has a clock.
Are we sure “she” isn’t trans?
Harris Trans? Nah, Willie Brown doesn’t swing that way.
I love markets and believe that the prediction markets tend to be more reliable than the polls. At the moment, John Stossel’s “Election Betting Odds” website shows Trump up 56.3-42.8 (13.5 differential). But the same website shows the Republicans chance of winning the House is only 45% (versus 55% for the Dems). I have trouble imaging a world where Trump wins the presidency, yet the Rs lose the House. Does this make sense?
Several recent redistricting Court cases have created some turmoil. As an example Alabama currently has 6/7 CD held by GoP. CT rulings have required the creation of a second ‘majority minority’ CD. All the CD in Alabama had a significant shift in their borders to accommodate this. I live in the new ‘majority minority’ CD and it is probably gonna go d/prog. Not a certainty it’s a lean for d/prog not a lock but I’d say closer to 55/45 than 50/50 the d/prog pick up another seat. A GoP candidate can win this CD as opposed to the other ‘majority minority’ CD which is more like 70/30 but it is an uphill climb. Several other States have similar redistricting issues which went into effect this election that were not in effect in ’22.
The House majority will be decided in NY and CA mostly, and in districts like VA-7.
Sure the CA and NY CD in play are crucial. Every CD counts. However losing 3-5 CD due to redistricting since ’22 is gonna play a role in how close control of the HoR turns out to be. This is kinda an under the radar issue b/c most folks believe the CD as drawn in ’22 are static till the next census. I suspect some folks may be surprised to find how much it matters.
The eGOP is so much a Uniparty creature that all their campaign cash goes to the most odious and unpopular Republican’t candidates in the primaries, candidates actual conservatives can’t stomach.
The PTB in the Party care not a whit if they lose House and Senate, as long as Trump can accomplish nothing.
Meh, I suspect they chose Beyer because he will be a soft touch.
Any serious journalist would destroy Kamala and ask her “why didnt you do that in your first term”?
She wont get any hard questions tonight. The stitch is in.
Saying that the Fox interview has the potential to put her back in the game completely misses the point. She has no game. It would be as if you asked me to step into the 4th quarter of a Super Bowl game in place of Tom Brady. I couldn’t do it. Harris could be bested by a stoned 1L in an interview right now.
Her only game is ballot harvesting. The election is a turnout battle. What she says in interviews is largely irrelevant.
“Although Baier is known for his journalistic integrity,
He’s a douche bag an absolute douche bag
“he will nevertheless press Harris for honest answers.
NO HE WONT!
Ryan wont allow it, he hates Trump with every fiber of his being,
And Botox Bret wouldnt anyway, he has no integrity
fox news is not always pro american
they have their left slanted agenda to appease the doj
they got rid of carlson and proved that
Before you put too much faith in the betting markets as a predictor remember Cankles was a 6-1 favorite over Trump in ’16 right up until election day. I’m still pissed I didn’t jump on that.
“It’s not real joy, see, it’s just what the ad promises — life, love, good health, the works. Been there, done that — and not even young people who weren’t born before those Coke and Pepsi ads promising world peace were around were fooled.”
My favorite is “To Serve And Protect.” I’ve actually met people who think that’s some kind of contract, or oath.
“Regular” polling by professional companies that specialize in doing such cannot be relied on, specifically because they themselves have become separate political centers of power by the nature of what they do and have been absorbed/aligned with other and larger political centers of power. Their output is itself a political lever and a tool to be used.
The betting market will be short term more accurate because a) it is so volatile, and b) because those who respond [bet] have their own skin in the game.
Both, however, are absolutely dependent on a couple of assumptions.
First, that some form of “national emergency” will not be declared “postponing” elections. I have noted that this concept has been mentioned a number of times since pre-convention times, and find it most disturbing that there has been far more silence on the mentions than outrage from either side of the political spectrum.
Second, that the integrity of the electoral process is such despite the known and obvious cheating taking place that it will be acceptable to enough of the population to be considered “consent of the governed”.
This concept of “enough” shrinks as ideological differences grow. We have had two previous eras in our national history when the differences became intolerable and had to be resolved by Clausewitzian means. The first was the Revolutionary War. Our leadership cadres on both ideological sides and their followers were not compatible; being ideologically drawn either from political philosophers who opposed hereditary and traditional political rule, or from those who were both hereditary and traditional. The second was the Civil War, where the role and relationship of the individual and the states to each other and the national government had to be resolved.
I submit for consideration that in our current political state; where the rule of law is returning to the rule of the individual using the law against his opponents, where our national sovereignty itself is highly questionable, where deliberately unconstitutional proposals are made and NOT shouted down by those loyal to the Constitution and what it stands for . . . that we may be approaching a low enough level of “consent” where Clausewitzian means become more relevant.
Subotai Bahadur
Monica is a good writer. Always nice to see her byline when I click on AT.
that graph appears to be one ‘book’ from a crypto site. The site I read weekly did not show Trump ahead until last week, once KH took the lead. Realclearpolling.com betting odds are quite favorable to Trump, today.