PredictIt Owns the Market for 2020 Presidential Election Betting

Voting in the Democratic primaries doesn’t start for six months. Candidates have yet to trek to the Iowa State Fair for their obligatory deep-fried photo opportunities, and many voters are only just waking up to the election looming in the fall of 2020. But on PredictIt, a political-betting website built by a group of researchers in New Zealand, a shadow primary has already been raging for months.

Former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas was the early front-runner, with traders giving him a 20% chance of winning as of January. California Senator Kamala Harris passed him later that month when she made her candidacy official, but by March, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont was the leader. Harris moved back into the front after calling out former Vice President Joe Biden in their first debate for praising the genteel segregationist senators of the past, but after their second faceoff on July 31 Biden regained a decisive lead.