Who Will Win Georgia, The Presidency?

If you’re a reader of Peach Pundit The Blog, or a listener of Peach Pundit The Podcast, you are a well-informed individual and thus aware that the race for the White House is extremely close. Perhaps I should narrow that statement to say that polling shows the race for the White House to be extremely close.

In spite of the polls, betting markets seem very confident former President Donald Trump will occupy the Oval Office come January 2025. Let’s take a look.

From Real Clear Politics:

Betting market Kalshi:

Betting market PredictIt:

Meanwhile, PredictIt bettors are very confident Trump will win Georgia with things breaking Trump’s way in October:

I’ve been fascinated by betting markets because they reflect what people think will happen and how others will behave as opposed to traditional polls, which ask people what they intend to do. Are betting markets more accurate?

A 2004 study by Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz concluded that betting markets often outperform traditional prediction methods such as polls. But, Professor Jaideep Srivastava of the University of Minnesota is skeptical of betting markets.

Q: How does a prediction market compare to polls in forecasting who will win the election?

A: Polls are much more scientifically conducted. There’s a representative sample. The pollsters, they try to do as good a job as they can. Individual polls might be biased. But there are polls of polls, or aggregation of polls, that eliminates the biases.

Now prediction markets, they are very limited in scope. Participation in it is self-decided. It is not a uniform sample, or a random sample of the population. Secondly, some of these markets are open for betting from anywhere in the world, so you don’t even know which sample you’re getting. Finally, because you can bet more money, you can move the market.

Who is going to win? Nobody knows! Go vote, and join us as we wait with panicked anticipation about the fate of America.