In his first three weeks in office, 13 of Trump’s 18 Cabinet nominees were confirmed by the Senate. Two of his most controversial choices, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert Kennedy Jr., are set to receive confirmation votes this week.
Prediction markets on who these nominees would be and their confirmation margins have been some of the most popular on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket since the 2024 presidential election. With some of the most explosive confirmation votes to come, here are five things traders should know about the Cabinet confirmation markets.
There's more than one way to bet on Cabinet markets
Prediction markets offer a few ways to trade on Trump’s Cabinet confirmations. Traders can buy contracts on who will hold certain Cabinet positions or trade on the number of senators who will vote to confirm each nominee.
For example, prediction market exchange Kalshi offers contracts on who the Director of National Intelligence will be is a $5.6 million market. There’s also a market on how individual senators will vote, which has reached $3.7 million in trading volume. That platform’s market on the number of senators who will confirm her is $1.7 million, larger than many of its markets but a fraction of the $400 million traders invested in the 2024 presidential election.
Some markets have earlier expiration dates than others
Settlement terms are important features of prediction markets, and they must be paid close attention to. Kalshi’s market on the number of senators that will vote to confirm Kennedy as HHS secretary has an Aug. 1 deadline. Prediction market exchange PredictIt offers the same market, but its deadline is April 30.
Both exchanges have similar prices well before both settlement deadlines.
There are only a few swing votes
Traders interested in individual senator markets have only a few names to watch. Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Mitch McConnell were the three Republicans who joined Democrats to vote against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s nomination. Murkowski and Collins have announced beforehand which way they’ll vote on close Cabinet nominations. McConnell has remained silent, his go-to move throughout his career.
There could be more Republican swing votes against union-aligned labor secretary nominee Lori Chavez-Deremer, as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul warns.
Senator forecasts are probability distributions
The prices of the number of senators who vote in favor of Cabinet nominees aren’t just probabilities on individual vote counts. Together, those prices form a probability distribution. Crypto prediction market platform Polymarket offers these prices on the number of senators who will vote to confirm Gabbard:
- 50 – 1%
- 51 – 26%
- 52 – 62%
- 53 – 10%
- 54+ – 1%
The odds show that 52 votes is the most likely outcome, but there’s also a chance that all 53 Republicans vote in Gabbard’s favor. It’s also possible that two Republicans defect instead of only one. These prices account for the uncertainty of public knowledge about individual senators’ votes, narrowing down likely outcomes.
Cabinet markets are among the most popular post-election political markets
Outside of elections, Trump’s Cabinet markets have been among the largest political markets across prediction market platforms. Polymarket’s market on which Trump nominees will be confirmed reached $18 million in trading volume. Kalshi’s market on Trump’s HHS Secretary broke $12 million. PredictIt users traded over 570,000 contracts on Kennedy’s final confirmation vote count.
