One of the country’s top pollsters just sounded a big red flag at the Trump campaign.
On Saturday, J. Ann Selzer, an Iowa pollster celebrated for her accuracy, released her final poll before Election Day, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump 47% to 44% in the Hawkeye State. Both campaigns have viewed Iowa as a certain victory for Trump. No Democrat has won Iowa since Obama in 2012. In 2016 and 2020, Trump won the state decisively by nine points and eight points, respectively.
“It’s hard for anyone to say they expected this to happen,” Selzer He said the Des Moines Registerwhich first published the survey. “She has clearly jumped into a leadership position.”
Selzer’s poll called election predictions into question. If Trump loses a state widely expected to go Republican, it may be a harbinger of electoral defeat elsewhere, such as in key battleground states in the Midwest.
Prediction markets were already trending away from Trump after his famous rally at Madison Square Garden on October 27. Trump Media stock collapsed 35% last week, also on the back of dwindling expectations in the election.
But Selzer’s poll added more pessimism to the so-called Trump trade In the financial markets, which were previously counting on a Trump victory. Because Trump planned to base such an unorthodox economic policy around his signature proposal to impose sweeping tariffs, many investors were bracing for what they assumed would be major disruptions in global markets. The Selzer survey turns this assumption on its head.
As a result, markets on Monday shifted toward bracing for a Trump loss. US dollar He falls 0.7% on Monday According to to Bloomberg. The Mexican peso, which was expected to be among the currencies most affected by the tariff system imposed by Trump, rose by 1.4% against the dollar. Meanwhile, the euro rose 0.6% against the dollar.
Stocks in Europe were trading at lower prices because they expected to be hit hard by Trump’s tariffs. It lagged the broader market during October, according to a Barclays analyst note published last month. The jump in the value of the euro seems to indicate that these concerns have subsided at least somewhat.
US Treasury yields fell on Monday as Trump’s policies were seen as inflationary, likely limiting the Federal Reserve’s ability to cut interest rates further.
Cryptocurrency markets also reacted to Trump’s declining electoral chances. Bitcoin price fell 1% on Monday. Trump has repositioned himself as a supporter of cryptocurrencies after his previous skepticism. In July at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Trump He said He wanted the United States to become the “crypto capital of the planet.”
Cryptocurrencies are being used as a standard currency in some prediction markets that have also reacted to the decline in Trump’s electoral chances. Betting site Polymarket, which only accepts bets on cryptocurrencies, saw Trump’s odds of winning the election drop from 65% on October 27 to 56% by Sunday evening. In Calcci, another forecast market, Harris briefly surpassed Trump as the front-runner on Saturday evening, a few hours after the poll was published. Trump’s odds of winning on both sites rebounded slightly but remain below their peak in late October.
However, one trade that was previously closely linked to Trump’s electoral chances has moved in the opposite direction. Trump Media stock, which had previously moved roughly in tandem with the Trump campaign’s political outlook, rose on Monday. Trump Media and Technology Group owns the conservative social media platform Truth Social and is in the process of building and developing a live streaming platform. The stock rose 3% on Monday to $31 per share. Although this is down from the $53 price it was at at the beginning of last week.
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