Trump Media & Technology (DJT) stock is soaring one week from Election Day as former President Donald Trump has extended his lead in the election betting odds to win the 2024 election.
DJT stock is up about 10% on the day, bringing its total valuation higher than Elon Musk’s X. It’s up nearly 250% in the last month, and the stock’s surge coincides with a major shift in the election betting odds.
Trump has held the betting odds lead for 24 consecutive days after trailing for 26 days straight. He now leads Vice President Kamala Harris in the odds by a greater margin than he has all cycle, boasting a 26.8-point average lead. This timing lines up with when his DJT stock began to shoot up in value.
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Trump pulls ahead nationally, polling better than 2016 and 2020
Most betting odds and polls have Trump ahead in almost every swing state. He also pulled ahead by 0.4 points in national polling, which is more predictive of the popular vote. While Trump didn’t win the popular vote in 2016 or 2020, he outperformed national polling by 1.1 and 2.7 points in the last two elections, respectively. Harris is still the betting favorite to win the popular vote, however.
There are generally considered to be seven swing states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona. Trump is favored in the odds to win all seven states and is only trailing in the polls in Michigan, where Harris recently retook a 0.5 percentage point lead.
Trump has also made four Democratic-leaning states somewhat competitive: Virginia, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Minnesota. Bettors give him a 16.5%, 20.5%, 12%, and 13% chance to win those states, respectively, while Harris leads in the polls by 5.8, 6.3, 7.7, and 4.3 points. Harris has not made any Republican-leaning states competitive, with her best chances to expand the electoral map coming in Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Iowa, where bettors give her between a 5% and 7% chance to win.
If the bettors are correct, Trump will win the election with 312 Electoral College votes. Picking up just one competitive Democratic-leaning state could add between 4 and 13 electoral votes to his count, and winning all four would add 35.
Democrats were favored to win the House majority from July until last week when the GOP pulled 1 point ahead in the betting odds. Republicans have since expanded this lead to 3 points.
In the Senate, betting odds favor Republicans to win a 52-seat majority. However, there are five races where the GOP underdog has mounted a comeback, and according to the founder of ElectionBettingOdds.com, Maxim Lott, it is likely Republicans win at least one of them.
According to Polymarket, the once-longshot Republican challengers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada now all have greater than a 20% chance of winning. Pennsylvania’s Dave McCormick has a 31% chance, Michigan’s Mike Rogers has a 33% chance, Wisconsin’s Eric Hovde has a 35% chance, Nevada’s Sam Brown has a 26% chance, and Arizona’s Kari Lake has a 26%% chance.
At their lowest points this cycle, McCormick was given a 13% chance, Rogers had a 18% chance, Hovde had a 13% chance, Brown had a 12% chance, and Lake had an 11% chance.
Trump gained 2.1 points on Friday, the day of his podcast interview with Joe Rogan, and another 0.5 the following day. He gained 0.3 points on Sunday, the day of his highly anticipated rally at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, and another 1.6 the day after. Harris will have a “major” event at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, where she will argue to voters that the 2024 election is a referendum on Trump.
Why is DJT stock surging a week before the election?
While some people are betting on the election through platforms like Polymarket, PredictIt, and Kalshi, others see an opportunity to profit off of the election by investing in Trump Media & Technology.
While DJT stock plummeted from $79.38 in March to $11.75 at the end of September, Trump’s early October rise in the election betting odds coincided with the stock’s surge to approximately $52 a week away from the election.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ indices began uptrends of their own at the same time that Trump took the betting odds lead and DJT stock began to sore. The S&P rose over 3%, as did the DJI before correcting down, and NASDAQ rose by about 4% since Oct. 7.
The staggering Tuesday DJT stock price rise comes as early voting figures have shown overwhelmingly optimistic turnout numbers for Republicans. The GOP is outperforming previous elections and outright leading in states such as Nevada and Arizona, and even Democratic stronghold Miami-Dade county in Florida.
Before the early voting figures started coming in, Republicans pointed to voter registration numbers as an early omen of success. Swing-state registration spiked this cycle, and Democrats lost ground on the voter rolls in Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada.
Trump has also never polled better than he is polling in the final stretch of the 2024 election. He leads nationally by 0.4 points, but he trailed President Joe Biden by 7.4 points on Oct. 29, 2020, and he trailed Hillary Clinton by 4.6 points on Oct. 29, 2016. In 2020, Trump wasn’t even favored to win Florida — he polled just under 3 points behind yet won by 3.4 points.
The bettor’s case for Trump
Even though Trump is favored to win the presidency and is given a 62.8% chance to do so on average, the election is not a foregone conclusion. Trump only had a 20% chance to win in 2016 but still pulled it off.
Bettors favoring Trump are putting weight into the polling data, voter registration figures, and early voting results, which don’t paint a complete picture but do look optimistic for Republicans in November. With bettors giving all seven swing states to Trump and even giving him a decent chance in four more states, Harris is not favored in any swing states, and there are no additional states bettors think she can win.
While Harris is not the incumbent president, she is part of the incumbent administration, and Biden currently has a job approval rating of 40.9. Trump had a rating of 44.4 on Oct. 29, 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic derailing the last year of his presidency. Most people, 64%, believe the country is on the wrong track today, while 60.5% felt this way four years ago.
The bettor’s case for Harris
While Harris is the betting underdog, if the election were simulated 100 times, she would likely win in 36 of those runs. Bettors favoring Harris are looking at value first and foremost. On Polymarket, a $100 bet on Harris would win $297.62. The same bet on Trump would only win $150.15.
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Experts are calling the 2024 election a “toss-up” and the “closest election in history,” with every swing state polling within the margin of error. If she is going to win, she’ll need to outperform the polls, which is something historian Allan Lichtman predicts she will do.
Those predicting a Harris victory may be betting on early-voting Republicans to cannibalize the Election Day Trump vote and produce an underwhelming overall turnout compared to projections. Harris bettors may also predict Republicans will get complacent on Election Day, thinking they have the election in the bag because of the polls, betting odds, and other metrics. If these two things happen, Harris will outperform the polls.
