🔮 4 More X-Factors in a Knife’s-Edge Election
PLUS: Where are the hurricanes?
Nearly two weeks after the first and likely only debate of the race (🔮25% odds of another Trump-Harris debate), more polls have come in but Polymarket’s map is little changed from debate night, with Kamala Harris improving slightly to be a 51% favorite.
If the current betting favorite in each state wins on election night, Harris would squeak out a 276 electoral vote win. Under the hood, the swing state picture has shifted a bit: Michigan (15 EV) and Arizona (11 EV) are showing widening leads for Harris and Trump respectively. The endorsement of Trump by Democratic mayor of Muslim-majority Hamtramck, Michigan (population 28,000) did not put a dent in this.
With 43 days to go, the election is on a razor’s edge. So it’s no surprise that our feeds are lighting up with videos of Amish for Trump rallies in Lancaster, PA or entertaining what would happen if Alaska flips blue (🔮10% odds). With the top line this close, there are any number of micro-stories that could become 2024’s ‘hanging chad’ - the fluke that ends up tipping the scales.
With this in mind, here are four more possible election game changers making waves on Polymarket.
Port Strike Snarls the Economy
This story has been all over the freight industry press for weeks, but has not yet hit the front pages of major US papers. Ryan Peterson of Flexport sounded the alarm last week about a looming labor dispute that could impact trade at American seaports.
The economic impact of a strike, according to Peterson, would be catastrophic:
In 2023, U.S. seaport trade totaled $2.12 trillion. If the ILA strikes, U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports—which handle 72% of that trade—would grind to a halt.
The ILA union has voted to prepare for a strike beginning October first, and the market does not believe this is an idle threat.
Potential Fallout
If the strike goes ahead it could be a major issue for Democrats: economic problems tend to hurt the incumbent party.
It would also put pressure on the Biden administration to halt the strike by invoking the Taft-Hartley Act, which could start a fight with organized labor. The surprise decision by the Teamsters, Democratic party stalwarts for generations, to not endorse Harris shows that there are already cracks in the alliance with organized labor.
And even if the strike is called off at the last minute, the threat itself is already having an impact on supply chains. Dominick Tullo of T&R Oil, a fuel supplier operating across several East Coast ports, told The Oracle:
I have no choice but to operate as if the strike will happen. Shipments are being shoehorned in and shippers are sending all their holiday stuff now, so the ports are very congested. The holiday rush is already happening. The December-February period is going to be a bloodbath.
Dems in Trouble in Virginia?
Early voting began over the weekend in Virginia, and pro-Trump X accounts have been buzzing following a poll showing the state in a dead heat. These arguments tend to have a strong form (Trump is winning in VA) or a weak form (if VA is this close, then Harris is in real trouble in GA and NC).
Yet the Polymarket state odds have barely budged for several of these safe D states that are now cited as “in play.”
Black Nazi Delivers North Carolina to Democrats
CNN dug up a trove of racy forum posts made over a decade ago by Republican North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, including one where he called himself a “black NAZI.”
Potential Fallout
Robinson is under pressure from the North Carolina GOP to drop out, amid the resignation of his senior campaign staff yesterday. But even before the scandal, he was already in trouble, with just 14% odds to win before the CNN story tanked them further.
Trump is distancing himself from Robinson, but has not called on him to exit the race. Polymarket users correctly called that Trump would avoid mentioning Robinson at a North Carolina rally on Sunday.
The market seems to believe Robinson when he says that he will not drop out, but has not adjusted the odds for Trump to take North Carolina in the general election. They currently stand at 56%, down from a high in the 80s over the summer.
Nebraska Switches to Winner-Take-All
Last week news broke that the Republican-dominated state legislature in Nebraska is considering abandoning the state’s unusual electoral system whereby one of its five electoral votes is awarded to the winner of the state’s second congressional district.
This swing district (Biden 2020, Trump 2016, Romney 2012, Obama 2008) often factors into many edge-case electoral maps.
What Markets Say
Today’s Polymarket odds have a sub-20% chance that NE-2 will end up as winner-take-all, and the District is likely to go blue this cycle.
Where are the Hurricanes?
On August 8, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast a “highly active” Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. The outlook put a 70% probability on a range of 17-24 named storms, 8-13 of which would develop into hurricanes.
But so far the season has been a dud, leaving forecasters scratching their heads. The official NOAA page, which is the resolution source for Polymarket’s market on Atlantic hurricane season, shows only two named so far - Alberto and Chris.
The Oracle spoke with Matthew Rosencrans of NOAA who cautioned that the tracking page is only updated monthly so does not yet include Hurricane Debby which formed on August 3.
Rosencrans also cautioned that storm frequency is not correlated with intensity, and that there are years in recent memory where activity picked up significantly in the back end of the season, for example 2010 had only two named storms in June-July, but then picked up with 17 more in Aug-November.
Disclaimer
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