Donald Trump’s 2024 Election Odds Surge After First Debate on Polymarket

After the initial debate of the 2024 election cycle, Republican candidate Donald Trump saw a significant boost in his odds of winning, according to Polymarket. This betting platform revealed increased market sentiment suggesting President Biden might not secure the Democratic nomination or could potentially withdraw from the race.

Blockchain bettors were unimpressed with President Biden’s debate performance, leading to a spike in Trump’s winning odds, which reached as high as 67%. Polymarket’s current contract for predicting the election outcome holds nearly $188 million, with approximately $23 million backing Trump and $21 million on Biden. These bets are executed through smart contracts on the Polygon blockchain and are settled in USDC stablecoin.

Polymarket experienced a brief outage due to a surge in traffic as the debate commenced.

Market sentiment increasingly doubts Biden’s capacity to remain a candidate until election day. According to Polymarket, Biden’s chances of being the Democratic nominee are under 70%. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s odds have climbed to 17%, while Michelle Obama’s stand at 7%. A separate contract on whether Biden would withdraw from the race surged to 43% during the debate.

Meanwhile, PoliFi token traders saw significant losses, with both major tokens for Trump and Biden plunging in value. CoinGecko data shows the MAGA token (TRUMP) fell by 12.5%, the BODEN token by 34%, and TREMP by 10%. The DJT token, recently in the news due to its connection to Barron Trump, decreased by 5%.

Despite the increasing relevance of crypto in Republican campaigns, it was not mentioned during the debate. A Polymarket contract predicting whether Trump would discuss crypto or bitcoin peaked at a mere 6%.

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was excluded from this debate, but his responses to the debate questions, broadcast on X, garnered 5.6 million views on the social media platform.