Despite recent polls favoring Harris, Trump's odds on Polymarket have risen significantly

Odaily Odaily News Last weekend, on the prediction market platform Polymarket, Donald Trump's chances of winning soared from 44% to 49% (currently 48%), while his rival Kamala Harris' chances of winning fell from 54% to 49%. More than $630 million has been bet on the results of the US election, and millions of users are betting on swing states and other related results in smaller markets. Strangely, Trump's lead on Polymarket has increased despite recent polls showing Harris has a better chance. The latest poll from Rasmussen Research shows Harris leading in the key swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania. Rasmussen Research has been accused of a conservative bias. RealClearPolitics' national polls show Harris' average support has risen by 1.5 percentage points, while The Economist's polls show Harris' average support has risen by 2.7 percentage points. Other prediction markets have yet to reflect this phenomenon. Betfair, the second largest prediction market, has about $67 million in bets, and Harris is about 5 percentage points ahead of Trump on the platform. PredictIt, one of the sites available to U.S. residents, has $34 million in bets, and Harris is about 10 percentage points ahead of Trump on the platform. Mathematical models also show Harris continuing to lead. FiveThirtyEight founder and Polymarket consultant Nate Silver's election prediction model shows Harris at 53.5% and Trump at 45.9%, the latter rising 0.7% in 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 female 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)