# WTF happened to improve Trump’s odds of re-election? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 9, 2020, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-happened-to-improve-trump-s-odds-of-re-election/914869 "2020-07-09T21:14:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 417
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2020, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-happened-to-improve-trump-s-odds-of-re-election/914869/417 "2020-08-31T20:48:30Z")
And yet, prediction markets outperform polling, and debiased prediction markets outperform debiased polling. e.g. Rothschild, [Forecasting Elections: Comparing Prediction Markets, Polls, and Their Biases](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6c34/f4a85b85ea0e6b709dc8884329f77ba61f5b.pdf), Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 5 2009, pp. 895–916 > My analysis finds that in the 2008 election cycle FiveThirtyEight’s debiased poll-based forecasts were, on average, slightly more accurate than Intrade’s raw prediction market-based prices. But when prediction markets are properly debiased, they are more accurate and contain more information than debiased polls; this advantage is most significant for forecasts made early in the cycle and in not-certain races (i.e., the races typically of most interest). Furthermore, I start two prediction threads every month and the most vocal anti-prediction market people never submit an entry. You can compete head to head with my prediction market based model. Show me that prediction markets are poor predictors don’t tell me. [August 2020 probabilistic senate prediction competition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/august-2020-probabilistic-senate-prediction-competition/918906) [August 2020 Swing State Confidence Pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/august-2020-swing-state-confidence-pool/918907) --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-happened-to-improve-trump-s-odds-of-re-election/914869)._