This statement certainly sounds ridiculous.
The President of the United States is elected by ballot.
Not selected by Polymarket.
It was not elected by a bunch of people betting USDC.
It wasn’t bought by a French whale.
But this is only a legal answer.
Real politics never begins to decide the winner after the last vote is counted.
The presidential election is first and foremost a contest about expected war.
Who will win.
Who is winning.
Who looks more imposing.
Who deserves to donate money.
Who deserves to stand in line in advance?
Who deserves to be tracked by the media?
Who deserves Wall Street’s early bets?
Who has created a feeling:
He might actually be coming back.
In 2024, Polymarket did something that traditional pollsters, television stations, and political commentators failed to do.
It puts a price on Trump in advance.
Not an opinion.
Not an editorial.
Not a tweet.
Rather, it is an ever-changing probability that can be traded with real money.
While traditional polls are still telling everyone that this is a 50-50 election, Polymarket has begun repeating a completely different message to the world:
Trump is winning.
Then the media started quoting.
Traders start placing bets.
Supporters began spreading the word.
The whale continues to buy.
Prices continue to rise.
“Trump will win” is no longer just a prediction.
It’s starting to become a market fact.
A media fact.
A financial fact.
Eventually, it even started to become a political fact.
So the question is not at all:
Did Polymarket vote for Trump?
Of course it doesn’t.
The real question is:
Before the United States officially decides who the president will be, does Polymarket decide in advance who should be the next president?
The answer is closer than many would like to admit:
Yes.
There is a pattern in modern politics that is easily underestimated.
Winners don’t emerge suddenly on election night.
Winners are created piecemeal over months and even years.
What happens if a candidate is deemed “will win”?
Donations are easier to come in.
The media is more willing to report it.
Supporters are even more excited.
Potential allies are more willing to stay closer.
Capital that originally waited and watched began to place bets.
Politicians began to take sides in advance.
The market began to trade according to his policies.
Even rival camps will start to defend his victory.
So “probability of winning” is never just a description.
It is a political resource in itself.
This is why polling is so important.
The poll is ostensibly asking:
“Who do you support?”
But it actually keeps telling people:
“Who’s ahead?”
Once “who is ahead” becomes public information, it will in turn affect political behavior.
This is not the occult.
This is feedback.
And in 2024, Polymarket takes this feedback to a level never reached before.
Because polls only tell you:
How many people say they support Trump.
Polymarket tells you:
Someone is willing to pay real money to buy Trump.
These two things are not psychologically weighty at all.
Suppose a Trump supporter says:
Trump’s winning rate is 65%.
What would you think?
MAGA.
Position bias.
Enjoy yourself.
If a CNN anchor said:
Trump is more likely to win.
You can still say:
The media has a position.
But if the screen says:
Trump 65¢
Things suddenly changed.
Because it’s not “who said that.”
This is:
market price.
This is the most powerful political magic of prediction markets.
After it turns opinions into prices, opinions suddenly wear one:
“Objective”
clothes.
You don’t need to explain why you believe Trump.
All you need to say is:
“Look at the market.”
The market has spoken.
On the eve of the 2024 election, the probability of Trump on Polymarket is significantly higher than that of Harris, but traditional polls still show that the election is very close. By November 4, Reuters reported that Polymarket gave Trump roughly 57% and Harris 43%, while mainstream polls at the time were still close to a 50-50 split. On that day, the cumulative trading volume of the platform’s presidential election market reached approximately $3.1 billion.
This is a very important fork.
The poll said:
dead heat.
The market says:
Trump ahead.
So for the first time people were faced with two sets of “reality.”
What really makes Polymarket dangerous is not trading volume.
Instead, the media started citing it.
Reuters clearly wrote before the election that mainstream news websites were citing the odds of these prediction markets; Elon Musk also publicly declared that betting markets may be more accurate than polls because participants actually have money in them.
This step seems ordinary.
It’s actually very critical.
Because from this moment on, Polymarket has completed an identity transformation.
The logic used to be:
News happens.
People watch the news.
People go and place their bets.
The logic now becomes:
People place bets.
Price changes.
Media reports on prices.
More people see the news.
More people place bets.
This is a feedback loop.
Polymarket is no longer just a destination for news consumers.
It began to become the raw material for news production.
So-called:
prediction market
It starts to become:
political media feed.
The media is not covering Trump.
The media began to report on “What the market thinks of Trump.”
And “how the market sees Trump” itself will affect how others see Trump.
This is no ordinary prediction.
This is intended for manufacturing.
The really weird thing about 2024 is this:
Trump does not have that overwhelming advantage in real polls.
But in the prediction market, he once had a very clear lead.
What does this mean?
This means that two Americas begin to exist on the Internet at the same time.
One America is:
Harris vs Trump, 50-50.
The other America is:
Trump 60%+.
The latter world is better suited for screenshots.
More suitable for forwarding.
More suitable for creating emotions.
It is more suitable to become a sentence:
The market knows.
This is why prediction markets spread better than polls.
Polls are complicated.
sample size.
weighted.
State level model.
margin of error.
likely voters.
registered voters.
A whole bunch of methodologies.
Polymarket Not required.
a number:
67%.
end.
For the first time, politics was reduced to something resembling a stock ticker.
And what the modern Internet likes most is this kind of thing.
Because it’s simple.
Fast.
Screenshots are available.
Can spread.
Can be emotional.
In October 2024, people began to notice a batch of huge Trump bets.
Multiple accounts continue to buy Trump.
The scale is so large that the market begins to doubt:
Is someone deliberately pushing up Trump’s winning rate?
Polymarket later said that a French trader was actually behind these large accounts and said it had found no evidence of his intent to manipulate the market. The relevant Trump positions are extremely large.
The most noteworthy aspect of this matter is not:
Did the French manipulate American politics?
There is no public evidence to prove this.
And in the end Trump really won.
Judging from the results, he can even reasonably say:
I just judged it right before you did.
But the problem is:
He bought more than a contract.
He is also affecting a probability that the whole world is watching.
Let’s say one day Trump is 55%.
He buys it.
57%.
Keep buying.
60%.
Media reports:
“Trump leads the prediction market by a wide margin.”
And then supporters see that.
traders see.
Wall Street sees it.
More people are starting to do the so-called Trump trade.
The price of Trump continues to rise.
You will suddenly find:
A market that is supposed to be responsible for “reflecting” political reality,
Start participating in creating political reality.
This is the most critical step.
If Polymarket only affected Crypto Twitter, I wouldn’t say it affected the presidential election.
At most it’s just a coin circle toy.
But what’s really happening in 2024 is:
Expectations of Trump’s victory began to enter traditional asset prices.
USD.
U.S. debt.
Bitcoin.
Trump Media.
RMB.
Mexican peso.
interest rate.
The so-called “Trump trade” has quickly become one of the most important trading themes on Wall Street.
Reuters reported in late October that part of the reason for the strength of the U.S. dollar was that the market began to increase expectations for Trump’s victory; the report also specifically mentioned that although polls still show Trump and Harris are very close, there has been a significant increase in Trump victory betting on Polymarket.
On November 1, Reuters reported that hedge funds began to look for trades that could profit from Trump’s victory, and clearly pointed out that some betting websites’ preference for Trump has provided momentum to “Trump trades”.
A similar phenomenon is even occurring in the interest rate options market. At the end of October, Reuters reported that U.S. interest rate options began to price in a Republican victory and higher volatility. The article directly mentioned that as Trump’s victory rate increased in online markets such as Polymarket, related transactions began to be promoted.
Notice what’s going on here.
Polymarket:
Trump may win.
↓
Trader:
Then I buy Trump-benefiting assets.
↓
Asset prices rise.
↓
Media:
“The Trump trade is heating up.”
↓
Public:
Wall Street also thinks Trump will win.
↓
The Trump “is winning” narrative continues to grow.
This is no longer a simple prediction platform.
It became:
Expected upstream.
Before the 2024 election, Trump Media’s stock price is highly tied to Trump’s probability of winning.
Reuters later reported that in the six weeks before Trump won the election, Trump Media’s stock price rose by about 196%; investors increasingly regarded the stock as a proxy asset for Trump’s political prospects.
Even on election night, some Trump Media supporters looked at stock prices and Polymarket’s Trump odds while watching the real election results.
This scene is very interesting.
Politics.
stocks.
Gambling.
Cryptocurrency.
media.
Already completely mixed together.
Are you supporting the presidential candidate?
Or are you trading assets?
You’re watching the election;
Still looking at the odds?
You are judging politics,
Or are you judging how others will judge politics?
Modern politics has become a real-time trading terminal.
And Polymarket is right in the center of the screen.
What is Trump best at?
Not policy details.
Not an academic argument.
Instead:
momentum.
A sense of winning.
crowd.
heat.
Unstoppable.
“Everyone is talking about me.”
“I have the biggest rally.”
“I have the highest approval rating.”
“They’re all targeting me.”
“I’m winning.”
This narrative itself is part of Trump’s political style.
And Polymarket gives this political style an almost perfect financial expression.
No need to shout:
Trump is winning.
Just show:
Trump 64%.
The effect is even stronger.
Because it doesn’t look like a slogan.
It’s data.
The most important thing is:
It is data updated in real time.
Trump says a word.
The odds move.
The debate is over.
The odds move.
An assassination occurs.
The odds move.
Biden withdraws from the race.
The odds move.
Harris accepted the nomination.
The odds move.
Trump is no longer just a candidate.
He became a K-line.
This is a natural fit for politicians like Trump who rely heavily on attention and momentum.
In the 2024 election, there is another person who cannot be ignored:
Elon Musk.
He openly supports Trump.
At the same time, he is also one of the most communicative people in the world.
Reuters reported in the lead-up to the election that Musk believed betting markets were more accurate than polls because real money was in them.
The spread of this sentence is extremely lethal.
Because it changes prediction market from:
“Gambler’s stuff”
Upgraded to:
“The way smart people see the real world.”
So a narrative that is extremely suitable for the Trump camp emerged:
Traditional media cannot be trusted.
The polls cannot be trusted.
Experts cannot be trusted.
But the market is credible.
Why?
Because:
people have skin in the game.
This is almost the financial version of MAGA’s distrust of the establishment.
As a result, there is a natural ideological resonance between Polymarket and Trump.
Not because Polymarket officials said:
Vote Trump.
But because it provides a narrative language that is very suitable for Trump:
Don’t believe them. Look at the price.
The real problem with traditional polls is not necessarily “inaccuracy.”
But it lost to the prediction market in communication.
The poll said:
48.1% vs 46.7%.
Error range ±3%.
Swing state statistical error.
The model has turnout assumption.
Ordinary people read:
Don’t know.
Polymarket:
Trump 62%.
Ordinary people read:
Trump is winning.
So the prediction market is not won by statistics.
What it won was:
Narrative efficiency.
This is very important.
Because modern politics is not conducted in papers.
It’s done on the phone screen.
The information that is easiest to understand is often the most powerful information.
And the probability of a real-time jump,
Naturally, it is more suitable for the mobile Internet than dozens of pages of polling methodology.
In the past, “I think Trump will win” was just an opinion.
In 2024, this view is suddenly tradable.
Do you think Trump wins?
Buy Trump.
Do you think Trump’s coming to power will push Bitcoin higher?
Buy Bitcoin.
Do you think tariffs will push the dollar higher?
Buy dollars.
Do you think the yuan will come under pressure?
Short the RMB.
Do you think Trump will be good for his company?
Buy DJT.
So what’s most noteworthy about 2024 isn’t:
Everyone started predicting Trump.
Instead:
The entire financial system started trading Trump.
Polymarket plays a very special role in this.
It provides the simplest anchor:
Trump win probability.
This probability becomes a reference for many other asset narratives.
Once the probability of Trump increases,
The “Trump trade” is easier to justify.
And once the Trump trade really goes up,
It will be further strengthened:
The market believes Trump will win.
This is a very beautiful self-reinforcing structure.
Of course.
This is the most logical place to refute this article.
Polymarket’s user base is already highly crypto-native.
In 2024, Trump openly embraced cryptocurrency, which was more popular among many currency users than the Democratic camp.
Before the election, Reuters quoted industry insiders as warning: Polymarket may be dominated by crypto-native users, and these users themselves are more Trump-biased, so prices may not be representative of ordinary American voters.
This is absolutely correct.
But if you think about it, it makes things more interesting.
If Polymarket is just “Trump-biased currency circles betting on themselves”,
Why do CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg, and Wall Street traders still watch it?
Because once the price is big enough,
It starts to break away from the original user base.
Something doesn’t need to perfectly represent voters;
To influence voters to understand reality.
Twitter is also not representative of the U.S. population.
Media reporters also do not represent the U.S. population.
Wall Street is even less representative of the U.S. population.
But they can still define political narratives.
The power of Polymarket is not:
It represents every constituent.
Instead:
It succeeded in getting important people to watch it.
Don’t know.
There is no reliable public evidence to tell you:
“Polymarket gave Trump X million more votes.”
There is not enough evidence to prove:
If Polymarket hadn’t existed, Harris would have won.
So if you understand the title as a strict statistical causal proposition:
“Without Polymarket, Trump would never have won the presidency.”
This cannot be proven.
It may even be overly exaggerated.
But political influence cannot always be reduced to:
How many votes to add.
Imagine a few questions:
Has Polymarket helped reinforce the feeling that Trump is “winning”?
Yes.
Have Polymarket probabilities been cited by mainstream media?
Yes.
Has it entered the information environment of Trump trade on Wall Street?
Yes.
Have the huge bets sparked a discussion about whether Trump odds are being pushed up?
Yes.
Does it provide Trump supporters with a very useful communication tool?
Apparently there is.
Then there is only one question left:
Do you think “who looks like he’s going to win” has any impact on politics?
If the answer is yes,
Well Polymarket is already involved in the election.
Trump’s entire political career is built on a very simple brand:
WINNING.
winner.
Success.
Max.
Best.
First.
Everyone is looking at me.
Everyone is talking about me.
Everyone thought I was going to win.
For such a politician,
Polymarket is almost a God-sent tool.
Because Polymarket puts:
“Trump is winning”
became:
Trump: 67%
Trump doesn’t even have to say it himself.
Let a “market” speak for him.
This is so much more advanced than a campaign ad.
You know campaign ads are propaganda.
Prediction markets are not.
At least it doesn’t seem like it.
So the political propaganda completed an upgrade:
Opinion disguised as probability.
Certainly not the ballot itself.
What is missing is a very important one:
Momentum Machine.
One keeps telling the internet:
Trump is more likely to win
machine.
There is no Polymarket,
There are also betting sites.
And Kalshi.
There are also traditional markets.
And there are polls.
Trump could still win, of course.
Maybe even still win.
But without Polymarket, the political information landscape of 2024 will be missing something very symbolic:
A huge, real-time, globally traded, screenshot-capable Trump win probability.
This is why the title should deliberately be more absolute:
Without Polymarket, Trump would not have become president.
What it really wants to express is not:
Polymarket stole the election.
Instead:
Trump becoming president has already happened in the market before there are votes.
Trump is just the first person to really push the prediction market into a presidential political narrative.
But it won’t be the last one.
Every future presidential election:
Candidate probability.
Swing state probabilities.
Congress controls the odds.
Vice Presidential Pick.
Debate performance.
Probability of withdrawal.
judicial cases.
Policy adoption rate.
will be traded in real time.
Politics will become more and more like financial markets.
A piece of news comes out.
Market repricing.
Reporter repricing.
Candidate response repricing.
Traders continue trading.
Then the reporter reports on it.
At a certain stage,
We may not even be able to tell the difference:
The market is predicting politics,
Or does politics start to revolve around market prices.
This is where Polymarket really changed American politics.
It didn’t elect Trump.
Instead it lets:
“Who will become president?”
It became an asset that could be traded 24 hours a day.
Once the president himself can be priced,
The presidential election is no longer just a civic act.
It simultaneously becomes:
financial products.
Media products.
Traffic products.
Speculative products.
Without Polymarket,
Will Trump win?
History has happened.
We could never actually perform this experiment.
So no one can prove it.
But ask the other way around:
If there is no Polymarket in 2024,
Will Trump’s victory be missing something extremely important?
The answer is yes.
One less person keeps telling the world:
Trump is winning
real-time price.
One less place for whales, currency circles, media, Musk, traders and ordinary supporters to discuss Trump around the same number.
One less machine that can instantly convert political sentiment into financial prices.
Losing one would mean:
“I support Trump”
Instantly upgraded to:
“The market thinks Trump will win”
narrative tool.
The political power of these two sentences is completely different.
So strictly speaking:
It’s not Polymarket that decides who gets to vote.
It wasn’t Polymarket that counted the votes.
It wasn’t Polymarket that put Trump in the White House.
But it does something that might be more relevant to this era.
It packages Trump into one in advance:
Winners available to buy.
Then Wall Street starts trading on this winner.
The media started reporting on the winner.
Supporters began spreading the word about the winner.
The internet is starting to get used to this winner.
Finally,
Ballots only complete the final step.
That’s why I still prefer to write the title as:
Because what really happens in 2024 may not be that Polymarket successfully predicted Trump.
But Trump proved one thing for the first time:
In today’s America, to be president, you need more than just winning votes.
You also need to win the market first.