Senator Raphael Warnock’s two U.S. Senate races in Georgia were viewed very differently by PredictIt traders.
In the 2020 U.S. Senate special election, all candidates ran in a “jungle primary” on the day of the General Election, with a runoff vote scheduled for January 5, 2021. The price for Democratic “Yes” contracts in the Georgia 2020 Senate special election market was well under $0.50/share for nearly the entire market lifetime, briefly rising before both Election Day (when the jungle primary was held) and the run-off election.
In contrast, Reverend Warnock has been the frontrunner for most of the 2022 U.S. Senate election. PredictIt traders have seen him as the frontrunner for most of the race, and as of now, the price for Democratic “Yes” contracts in the Georgia 2022 Senate election is at $0.80/share. The runoff is being held in two weeks on Tuesday, December 6th.
Below are the closing prices for the 2022 and 2020 Georgia Senate Democratic contracts plotted over time, with the respective General Election “Election Day” synchronized at Day 0. The dates for each election do not correspond as the General Election in 2020 was held on November 3rd while the 2022 General Election was held on November 8th.
Interestingly, in 2020 when Warnock was the underdog (and won the runoff) his end-of-day price was under $0.50/share until six days out from Election Day (i.e., the jungle primary.) However, in 2022, when Warnock was favored by traders to win, he fell below $0.50/share 12 days before Election Day. In both cases, the prices sharply moved on Election Day:
- In 2020, the Democratic “Yes” price dropped $0.13/share (from $0.53 to $0.40)
- In 2022, the Democratic “Yes” price increased by $0.24/share (from $0.39 to $0.63)
The “Close Share Price” is used for each contract and doesn’t reflect price movement throughout the day. The 2022 data comes from PredictIt’s public API and covers April 23, 2022, through November 19, 2022. The 2020 data was provided by PredictIt and covers the entire lifetime of the market: March 23, 2020, to January 8, 2021.
The 2020 Georgia U.S. Senate Special market ID is 6567 and the corresponding Democratic contract is 22012. The 2022 Georgia U.S. Senate market ID is 7107 and the corresponding Democratic contract is 25058.
PredictIt traders can buy “Yes” and “No” shares on whether each party (typically “Democratic” and “Republican”) will win the U.S. Senate election in Georgia. A correct prediction receives $1/share, and a wrong prediction receives $0/share. The individual share prices can indicate what traders believe is the probability of that party winning the Senate election. If Democratic “Yes” shares in the 2022 Georgia U.S. Senate election are trading at $0.80/share, then it could be considered that the traders’ aggregate belief is that Reverend Warnock has an 80% chance of winning. (Please note that this does not factor in PredictIt trading fees).
Although I’m not a PredictIt data partner, PredictIt provided the 2020 Georgia data for free as part of its efforts to support research opportunities created by prediction markets. You can learn more about how PredictIt data is used by academic data partners here.