🔮What Will Go Down at the Trump-Harris Debate?

PLUS: Swing State Update • Cracks in the Labor Market? • Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce: Break-up or Engaged?

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will debate live at 9pm Eastern on Tuesday, moderated by ABC’s David Muir. There is a 27% chance they will shake hands and a 2% chance that the debate doesn’t happen as scheduled.

What mention markets (Trump, Harris) say about the candidates’ most likely lines of attack: 

Trump

Border 15+ times (🔮 62%) Immigration is Trump’s signature issue, as reflected by the high number of times he must say “border” for the market to resolve yes. Yet polling suggests immigration is the third most important issue in the election (11% of voters say it’s their top issue), behind the economy (38%) and abortion (16%). 

“Israel” (🔮 90%) After his meeting with Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, Trump sharpened his attacks on Harris: “If I don’t win this election… Israel is doomed,” is a frequent rally line.    

“Border Czar” (🔮 84%) Trump uses this term to focus anger at Harris over her migration policy role, while Democrats protest that her official job title was never “border czar.” 

“Abortion” (🔮 82%) Despite appointing the judges who tipped the Supreme Court balance towards overturning Roe, Trump is keen to highlight that he dropped a federal abortion ban from the 2024 GOP platform. This looks like an attempt to pivot back to the center on an issue that has cost Republicans dearly in recent elections: 63% of Americans support legal abortion.

“China” 3+ times (🔮 89%): Trump has promised to slap 60% tariffs on Chinese imports and cast doubt on the US defense posture over Taiwan. 

Harris  

“Project 2025” (🔮 84%): Several planks of this conservative policy playbook poll horribly even with Republicans, and Trump has disavowed the project. Google search volume for the term, a proxy for public interest, peaked in mid-July and shows no sign of rebounding.

“Abortion” (🔮 88%) No surprise that Harris would want to press this issue given Democrats’ polling advantage.

“Democracy” (🔮 87%) Recent polling suggests that the ‘threat to democracy’ line of attack against Trump is resonating in key swing states.

“Not going back” (🔮 61%) This slogan took on a life of its own at Harris rallies and evokes the chaotic days of the Trump administration. 

“Convicted felon” (🔮 59%) Trump just got a lifeline with a second sentencing delay in his New York hush money case until after the election. But that isn’t likely to stop Harris from deploying the ‘prosecutor vs felon’ frame, which she has repeated in ads and speeches.

What Happens Next? 

Polymarket users believe that Harris is likely to be judged the winner in the 538/Ipsos poll, which attempts to rapidly gauge debate performance, but that Trump will maintain his overall lead the day after the debate. 

Swing State Update

At the state level, the biggest moves have come in Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes) and Michigan (15 electoral votes):

Michigan: (🔮56% Harris, 44% Trump) Polymarket odds have tightened for Harris over the last three weeks, down from a high of 67% in early August. This move tracks changes in polling averages (RCP Harris +1.2). Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer has begun sounding the alarm: “It makes me nervous to see any poll that says there's a five-point lead for Kamala Harris in Michigan now. It's just not true." 

Pennsylvania: (🔮 55% Trump, 45% Harris) An even larger shift in the odds has come in Pennsylvania, still the most likely tipping point state (🔮 35% chance), where Trump has rallied from a 42% underdog on August 15, to the 55% favorite today. The RCP polling average has both candidates in a dead heat at 47.6%. 

What’s Going on with Employment?

Polling suggests that the economy is the top issue in this election cycle. But there are parallel narratives forming about the labor market. Polymarket odds show positive expectations for September nonfarm payroll growth. 

And a long-term view of the data suggests overall unemployment is ticking higher but nowhere near the pandemic spike. However a massive 818,000-job downward revision to the jobs data released for the twelve months ending March 2024 wiped out many of the earlier Biden administration gains, and showed that most of the added jobs were going to foreign-born workers. 

Market Calls BS on Taylor Swift “Showmance”

The Daily Mail ran a story on September 3rd suggesting that Taylor Swift’s romance with Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs (🔮15% favorite to win Super Bowl 2025) was a PR stunt orchestrated by a firm specialized in celeb “showmance” - fake relationships designed to gin up attention.

Polymarket users quickly called BS on the story, which suggested that the relationship was pre-planned to end in break-up on September 28.

To the contrary, the market seems quite optimistic about the couple’s prospects in coming months. 

An Invitation from CD Castellón…

CD Castellón, which to our knowledge remains the only professional football club sponsored by a Substack, has invited all Oracle readers in the Castellón area to check out the #BusPolymarket on display in the Nou Estadi Castàlia parking lot ahead of today's match against Cádiz ⚽

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