On Election Eve, Florida's Betting Markets Favor Donalds and Moody - and the Closing Polls Agree, Narrowly
Two days before Florida votes, the people putting money on the outcome and the people answering pollsters are telling the same story: Byron Donalds ahead for governor by a little, Ashley Moody ahead for Senate by more - with the governor's race close enough that Tuesday will decide it.
Florida's two big races go to the voters on Tuesday with a rare alignment between the oddsmakers and the surveyors. On the prediction exchanges, where traders buy and sell shares priced as implied probabilities, Republican Byron Donalds trades at 70 cents on Polymarket and 69 cents on Kalshi in the open-seat governor's race against Democrat David Jolly - roughly a two-in-three implied chance - while Republican Ashley Moody trades at 90 cents on both exchanges in the special Senate election against Democrat Angie Nixon. A second market snapshot read Sunday put Kalshi's governor price at 65 cents for Donalds and 37 cents for Jolly. Market prices are traders' money, not votes, and they move; they are a snapshot of expectations, not a result.
The closing polls point the same way, more cautiously. The final Jolly-versus-Donalds surveys show Donalds ahead by 2 to 4 points, and the closing Moody-versus-Nixon polls have Moody up by 4 to 8 - consistent with this station's earlier polling file, which found the governor's race essentially tied among decided voters and Amendment 3 short of its 60 percent threshold. The exchanges also price the combinations: Kalshi puts a Donalds-and-Moody sweep at 69 cents, a split with Jolly winning the governorship and Moody the Senate seat at 22 cents, and the two Democratic-sweep or reverse-split outcomes in single digits and low teens.
What neither the markets nor the polls can price is Tuesday's turnout - the variable this station's early-vote reporting has flagged all weekend, with the Republican early lead at just 2.8 points statewide and the Panhandle running softest in the state. If Election Day turnout in Northwest Florida matches its usual Republican strength, the favorites' prices will look prescient; if it does not, the governor's race is the one positioned to surprise. Polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, and Escambia County voters also decide the LOST penny-tax renewal and their local council and commission races on the same ballot.
