Launch recap: 4 markets, 2 stories.
DissMarket's first four daily markets in one view. The two stories worth tracking out of the launch fortnight: when the market and the room agree (Days 1 and 2), and when the book trades rich vs the polls (Days 3 and 4).
The four markets, in one table
| Date | Market | Market price | Public reading | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 29 | 2028 Dem nominee | Newsom 27% | Newsom 28% (X poll, n=402) | Alignment (−1 pt) |
| May 2 | Trump approval (weekly) | Down 65% | Disapprove 58% (Silver Bulletin) | Calibration (−7 pts, both said down) |
| May 7 | 2028 Dem nominee | Newsom 25% / Harris 8% | Harris 22% / Newsom 21% (Echelon) | Divergence (Harris 14-pt gap) |
| May 9 | 2026 House control | Dem 84% | Dem +10 generic ballot (Marist) | Rich (book vs ~65% base rate) |
All public readings are most-recent reading at time of publication. Market prices captured on the day of publication.
Story 1 — When the market and the room agreed (Days 1 & 2)
Two markets out of four came in as calibration stories, not divergence stories. Day 1 had a 402-respondent X poll land within a point of Polymarket on every named 2028 Democratic candidate. Day 2 had a $463 weekly market on Trump approval pointing the same direction as Silver Bulletin’s aggregator — both said disapproval was rising.
The Day 1 finding mattered for the publication’s thesis. A 14-day-old media product needs evidence that the prediction-market signal and the public-opinion signal sometimes converge cleanly. They do. Day 1 produced the cleanest version of that convergence we’re likely to get for some time.
Story 2 — When the book traded rich (Days 3 & 4)
The other two markets produced the divergence story the publication exists to track. Day 3 had Polymarket pricing Newsom three times as likely as Harris to win the 2028 Democratic nomination, while Echelon Insights’ April 17–20 likely-voter poll had them statistically tied. Day 4 had Polymarket pricing a Democratic House majority at 84% — near-certain — while a 10-point generic-ballot lead has historically mapped to chamber-flip rates closer to 60-70%.
Both are mispricings worth tracking. Neither resolves until late 2026 or beyond, so the test is whether the prices move toward the polls, the polls move toward the prices, or both numbers find a new equilibrium as the news cycle compounds.
What we’re tracking next
Three open questions for the next four weeks of markets:
- Does Polymarket’s 2028 Newsom-vs-Harris gap narrow? If a second named pollster confirms the Harris ceiling, the book has to mark down. If it doesn’t, the bettor pool is seeing something the pollster isn’t.
- Does the House 2026 book bleed from 84%? Markets at near-certainty pricing tend to overshoot. A move to 75% inside the next four weeks would suggest the book is correcting toward the base rate.
- Where’s the next thin market we shouldn’t anchor a Daily on? Day 2’s $463 market was the lesson. Going forward we filter for $50K+ volume on any market we anchor a Daily on. If a thin market produces a clean signal anyway, that’s a paper for Marcus to write.
Methodology & sources
- All four market pages are linked in the table above. Each includes captured prices, full pollster methodology citations, and our editorial framing.
- DissMarket methodology — how we measure public opinion vs prediction-market prices.
- Editorial policy — how we publish.
- Press inquiries: press@dissmarket.com.