On Thursday afternoon, Kash Patel was confirmed as the Director of the FBI. Only two Republican senators joined Democrats in voting against his confirmation. Political prediction market platform PredictIt had narrowed Patel’s likely vote margin to 51 or 50 confirmation votes in the hours before Patel’s final confirmation vote.
PredictIt prices were riled that morning by Senator Susan Collins’ announcement that she would not vote to confirm Patel during the morning’s cloture vote. The odds of Patel receiving 52 confirmation votes fell from 75% to 15% in the wake of Collins’ statement.
Collins’ statement also called Lisa Murkowski’s and Mitch McConnell’s votes into question. Both senators have voted against controversial Trump nominees, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
This time, McConnell voted for Patel’s nomination, giving Patel a crucial vote that pushed him over the line without the vice president’s tie-breaking vote. Murkowski voted against Patel’s nomination, giving him a bare majority of 51 votes.
The uncertainty of inside information
While Collins announced her opposition to Patel during the cloture vote, Murkowski and McConnell remained silent until the confirmation vote itself. The odds of only receiving 50 votes were 40% as traders waited for both senators to vote or make an announcement.
The odds also revealed how public information can lack key details that only insiders know. Collins and Murkowski were the most high-profile Republican senators who voted against Trump in his first term and survived until his second. Their seemingly mercurial votes are based on difficult electoral circumstances that only they have the most current information about.
Collins is a Republican from Democratic-leaning Maine, and Murkowski is a Republican from a red state that also supports certain Democratic policies, like increasing the minimum wage.
The uncertainty about the information individuals like the swing senators have leaves the possibility of upsets wide open for ambitious traders. It’s a hard lesson for prediction market users who don’t acknowledge the uncertainty of even high probabilities.
