$768M already bet on the 2028 US election, 791 days early

Combined volume on Polymarket and Kalshi for the 2028 US presidential winner has already crossed $768.6 million, with 791 days still standing between now and the actual vote on November 7, 2028. That’s real money committed to a race that hasn’t had a single primary, debate, or formal announcement yet, and Polymarket accounts for the overwhelming share of it. Its market alone has pulled in $703.7 million against Kalshi’s $64.9 million, roughly a tenfold gap between the two platforms.

Polymarket’s market opened in July 2025 and already tracks more than 50 possible candidates, a list wide enough to include names that will almost certainly drop out long before any actual voting happens. Sitting vice president JD Vance leads the field at 24.6% probability, with $16.2 million wagered specifically on that outcome. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sits second at 13.3% ($13.6 million), followed by Jon Ossoff at 11.8% ($5.7 million) and Marco Rubio at 8.8% ($12.3 million). Vance carrying the largest probability makes sense given incumbency, but the size of Ocasio-Cortez’s number this early says something about how seriously traders are pricing a name that hasn’t formally entered anything yet.

Kalshi’s version of the same market tells a similar story at a smaller scale. Vance leads there too, at 23%, close enough to Polymarket’s number that the two platforms aren’t disagreeing about who’s currently favored, just about how much money is willing to back that view. Ossoff holds second on Kalshi at 12%, and Rubio takes third at 10%, both roughly matching their standing on the larger platform.

Two years out is an unusual point for this much capital to already be positioned, and it fits a pattern that’s been building on both platforms all year: the overall gap in trading volume between Polymarket and Kalshi keeps widening even as both keep pulling in bigger numbers on the same events. Sports still drives most of that broader gap between the two platforms, so a political market where Polymarket leads by 10x instead of the usual 2.7x stands out as an exception rather than the norm. Whatever’s pulling this much money toward a race this far out, it isn’t waiting for the candidates to actually declare first.