The US presidential election
The largest prediction markets in the world settle on this question, and it is not decided by the national vote total. It is decided by 538 electors, a handful of states, and a certification process that runs for weeks after election night.
At a glance
- Held
- Every four years, the Tuesday after the first Monday in November
- Next election
- 3 November 2026 is the midterm; the next presidential election is 7 November 2028
- Threshold to win
- 270 of 538 electoral votes
- Decided by
- State results, certified by state authorities and counted by Congress
What is actually being decided
Voters do not elect a president directly. They elect a slate of electors in their state, and those electors cast the votes that matter. Each state gets electors equal to its congressional delegation - House seats plus two senators - and the District of Columbia gets three. The total is 538, and a majority of 270 wins.
Every state except two awards all of its electors to whoever wins the state. Maine and Nebraska split theirs by congressional district, which is why single districts in two small states occasionally carry the weight of a swing state in the final arithmetic.
The consequence is that the national popular vote is a summary statistic, not the deciding number. A candidate can lose the popular vote and win the presidency; it has happened five times, twice since 2000. A market on who wins is therefore a market on a specific set of state outcomes, not on national sentiment.
Five presidents have taken office after losing the national popular vote. The national number is a description, not the rule.
What rides on the outcome
The office controls the executive branch, nominates federal judges including Supreme Court justices, sets trade and sanctions policy through delegated authority, commands the armed forces, and shapes the regulatory posture of every federal agency. Most of that requires no new legislation, which is why an election result reprices assets before a single bill is written.
For markets specifically, three channels dominate: tariffs and trade policy, which move currencies and commodity prices directly; regulatory direction for energy, finance and technology; and appointments, above all to the central bank and the agencies that write market rules.
That is also why so much adjacent trading exists. Markets on cabinet picks, on policy actions in the first hundred days, and on personnel decisions all descend from this one result.
| Name | Share |
|---|---|
| Pennsylvania19 electoral votes | 3.5share of 538 electoral votes |
| Georgia16 electoral votes | 3share of 538 electoral votes |
| North Carolina16 electoral votes | 3share of 538 electoral votes |
| Michigan15 electoral votes | 2.8share of 538 electoral votes |
| Arizona11 electoral votes | 2share of 538 electoral votes |
| Other | 3share of 538 electoral votes |
| The other 43 states and DC | 82.7share of 538 electoral votes |
Source: Electoral vote allocation from the 2020 census apportionment
The calendar and the legal machinery
The cycle is long and every stage is dated. Parties select nominees through state primaries and caucuses that run from January into June, formalise them at summer conventions, and campaign through the autumn. Election Day is fixed by federal law as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
What follows election night is where markets have been caught out. States canvass and certify their results over the following weeks under their own deadlines. Electors meet in their state capitals in mid-December. Congress counts the electoral votes in early January, and the president is sworn in on 20 January.
The 2022 reform of the counting law tightened all of this considerably: it names a single state official responsible for submitting the certificate, states explicitly that the Vice President's role in the count is ministerial, and raises the threshold for an objection to one fifth of each chamber. Those changes narrowed the set of disputed-outcome scenarios that markets used to price.
- Primaries and caucuses: January to June of the election year.
- Election Day: the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
- Electors meet: the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December.
- Congress counts: 6 January. Inauguration: 20 January.
State vote count
Election night reporting is unofficial
Canvass and certification
State deadlines run for weeks
Concentrated in Where a close result gets contested
Electors cast votes
Mid-December, in state capitals
Congress counts
6 January, under the 2022 reform
Inauguration
20 January at noon
Behind the subscription
The rest of this entry is the part that changes a decision: what moves the price, which contract sets it, who ships it and where that can be cut off.
What moves the probability
Six forces, starting with the one every cycle relearns: the historical size of state polling error compared with the margins that decide the race.
Where it trades and what settles the contract
Four venues, two settlement standards - a network call or a certified result - and the days between them where a market can sit at 95 cents.
Where the decision actually falls
Why roughly forty states are decided before the campaign starts, and how the tipping-point state differs from the national margin.
How this shows up in prediction markets
Winner, nominee, popular vote, state-by-state and electoral vote bands - five families, five different resolution risks.
Included with a subscription
Create an account to unlock the full entry — price drivers, trading venues, trade flows and the live markets attached to it.
Frequently asked questions
- Can a candidate win the presidency while losing the national vote?
- Yes, and it has happened five times, twice since 2000. The presidency is decided by 270 of 538 electoral votes allocated state by state, so where the votes fall matters more than how many there are in total.
- How accurate are election polls?
- State polls in recent presidential cycles have missed final margins by several points on average, in both directions. The important feature is that the errors are correlated across states, so the realistic range of outcomes is wider than treating each state separately would suggest.
- When does an election market actually pay out?
- It depends on the resolution rules. Some contracts settle on the projections of major news organisations within days; others wait for the official certified result, which can take weeks. Both are defensible standards, and the difference is why prices sit below 99 cents even when the outcome looks settled.
- Did the 2022 law change how a disputed election would go?
- It narrowed the room considerably. It designates a single state official to submit the certificate, states that the Vice President's role in the count is ministerial, and raises the objection threshold to one fifth of each chamber. Several scenarios markets used to price are much harder to reach now.
Primary sources
Related entries
Prediction markets carry real risk of loss. Nothing on Market Guy is financial advice — it is research tooling to help you think, not a signal to trade.