By Mandy Taheri
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On Wednesday, Polymarket, which identifies as the world's largest prediction market, revealed a record-high projection that President Joe Biden will drop out of the presidential race.
At noon, on Polymarket, a platform where users can place "yes" or "no" bets on the likelihood of world events, 82 percent of users said Biden will drop out of the presidential race, an all-time high. An hour later, the percentage dropped to 72. A total of $10,249,700 has been bet since the poll was posted on September 21, 2023.
Newsweek reached out to the Biden campaign for comment via email on Wednesday.
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The vote comes nearly a week after the first presidential debate of this cycle. On June 27, President Biden and presumptive Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump faced off for the first time since the 2020 election.
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Biden's performance was criticized by his own party, with many Democratic voters, politicians, and commentators citing his stumbling and at times incoherent and hard-to-hear responses as worrisome. Questions about Biden's mental sharpness and age have flared up again after the 81-year-old's performance. A Biden aide, meanwhile, told Newsweek late Thursday night that the president was battling a cold during the debate.
John King, CNN's chief national correspondent, stated in the outlet's debate recap that Biden's performance sparked a "deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party."
Yesterday, Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett became the first sitting House Democrat to call on Biden to drop out of the election. Biden's campaign has not signaled stepping down.
For most of the past nine months since the question, "Biden drops out of presidential race?" was posted on Polymarket, bets have been around or under 30 percent.
At the start of the debate last Thursday at 9 p.m. ET, users estimated the president had a 21 percent chance of dropping out. Since then, bets have skyrocketed, with users fluctuating between 31 upwards to 82.
With over $100 million in predictions cast in June, the platform hit an all-time trading volume high, according to a press release by PR Newswire. The presidential debate is seen as a significant factor in the increase, with nearly $8 million predictions made on June 27, the night of the presidential debate.
The platform features numerous other U.S. presidential election-related bets. Currently, Trump is the predicted winner of the 2024 election with 61 percent of the bets, followed by Vice President Kamala Harris at 17 percent, and Biden at 11 percent. Over $216 million has been bet on that question.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment via email on Wednesday.
National polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight shows Trump pulling ahead of Biden by 2.1 points, as of Wednesday morning. The presidential debate has been extremely tight, with predictions often flipping who will control the White House. Just days before the debate, Biden was leading by a narrow margin.
Updated 7/3/24 at 2:52 p.m. ET: This article was updated for clarity.
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