On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Gabbard received 52 votes with one Republican, Mitch McConnell, joining Democrats to oppose her confirmation.
Prediction markets landed on 52 Senate votes about a week before her Feb. 12 confirmation. On Feb. 5, the political prediction market platform PredictIt forecasted a 39% chance of 52 votes. Those odds increased to 55% the next day when the Senate advanced her nomination to a full vote the next week.
Kalshi, a commercial prediction market exchange regulated by the CFTC, has forecasted 52 votes since Feb. 4. That day, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to move Gabbard’s nomination from the committee to the full Senate for further debate.
Crypto prediction market platform Polymarket found 52 senators the most likely outcome since the afternoon of Feb. 3. Republican swing senator Susan Collins announced she would support Gabbard’s nomination.
Gabbard may have secured the DNI position, but like the presidential election, Gabbard’s confirmation validated claims about prediction markets’ forecasting abilities.
Why McConnell defected
Prediction markets forecasted complete Democratic opposition to Gabbard’s nomination. CNN reports that concerns about Gabbard included:
- Lack of support for Ukraine in the war Russia’s 2022 invasion began
- Unclear position on Section 702, “a key surveillance and security tool”
- 2017 meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad
- Previous support for pardoning Edward Snowden
McConnell has spent his career as a security hawk. He’s supported countering China’s military and political influence and supported countering Russia as the Soviet Union disintegrated and Putin’s dictatorship took power. Finally, McConnell has been among Ukraine’s most vocal advocates in the Senate.
Gabbard’s skepticism of American intelligence agencies and hostility to the country’s spies undermined his confidence that she could do the job properly.
“The nation should not have to worry that the intelligence assessments the President receives are tainted by a Director of National Intelligence with a history of alarming lapses in judgment,” McConnell said, defending his vote.
McConnell is no longer the Republican Senate Leader, and his health concerns suggest that he will not run for re-election in 2026. Voting contrary to a popular Republican president’s wishes, as he did in Pete Hegseth’s confirmation, also suggests that this is McConnell’s final Senate term.
