Over $1 billion dollars — yes, with a ‘b’ — have been bet on the 2024 presidential election, but that’s not all. Traders on Polymarket, a decentralized blockchain-based prediction market, are also betting on what words each of the vice presidential candidates will say during Tuesday’s debate, which airs on CBS at 9 p.m. ET.
Already, over $1,000,000 has been traded on a variety of words, with mention markets for racist, couch, Haitian, weird, abortion, Mamaw, Fentanyl, and illegal alien, just to name a few.
Using gambling parlance, we’d refer to these as “debate props”. On Polymarket, they are called “mention markets.”
With traders using prediction markets to risk real money on which words the candidates will say, we decided to analyze speech transcripts and interviews from each candidate to find out which words each vice presidential candidate uses most often on the campaign trail.
However, we thought it would be even more interesting after filtering out synonyms, candidates names, and mostly irrelevant words, to see what the candidates focus on in terms of policy and messaging.
What JD Vance says on the campaign trail
What Tim Walz says on the campaign trail
Here was our process for generating the word clouds:
Identified the nominee’s starting point by finding their nomination date.
Collected transcripts from notable speeches dating back to when each candidate accepted their VP nomination.
- Transcribed speech video into text.
- Manually reviewed transcripts to ensure the exclusion of advertising or article titles/sub-title text.
- Organized the speeches chronologically in a designated Google Doc.
- Uploaded the document to a word cloud generator.
- Filtered words synonyms, candidate names, and other words that were less related to policy and tone.
- Customized the word cloud’s color — blue for Walz and red for Vance.
- Took a screenshot of the candidate’s word cloud.
Vance Speech/Interview List
- July 17, 2024 – Republican National Convention Speech (Milwaukee, WI)
- July 22, 2024 – First Solo Rally (Middletown, OH)
- Aug. 6, 2024 – Stump Rally (Philadelphia, PA)
- Aug. 7, 2024 – Stump Rally (Eau Claire, WI)
- Aug. 11, 2024 – Face the Nation Interview
- Aug. 14, 2024 – Stump Rally (Grand Rapids, MI)
- Aug. 21, 2024 – Stump Rally (Asheboro, NC)
- Aug. 25, 2024 – Meet the Press
- Aug. 27, 2024 – Stump Rally (Big Rapids, MI)
- Aug. 28, 2024 – Stump Rally (Erie, PA)
- Aug. 29, 2024 – Firefighter Union Convention (Boston, MA)
- Sept. 23, 2024 – Stump Rally (Leesport, PA)
- Sept. 23, 2024 – ‘Believers and Ballots’ (Charlotte, NC)
- Sept. 24, 2024 – Stump Rally (Charlotte, NC)
Walz Speech/Interview List
- Aug. 6, 2024 – Harris-Walz Ticket’s First Rally (Philadelphia, PA)
- Aug. 7, 2024 – Stump Rally (Eau Claire, WI)
- Aug. 9, 2024 – Stump Rally (Glendale, AZ)
- Aug. 12, 2024 – Municipal Worker’s Conference (Los Angeles, CA)
- Aug. 17, 2024 – Stump Rally (Omaha, NE)
- Aug. 21, 2024 – Democratic National Convention (Chicago, IL)
- Aug. 28, 2024 – Firefighters Union Convention (Boston, MA)
- Aug. 28, 2024 – Liberty Highschool Speech (Hinesville, GA)
- Aug. 29, 2024 – CNN Interview
- Sept. 2, 2024 – Labor Day Rally (Milwaukee, WI)
- Sept. 7, 2024 – Human Rights Campaign Dinner (Washington, DC)
- Sept. 10, 2024 – Stump Speech (Phoenix, AZ)
- Sept. 12, 2024 – Stump Speech (Grand Rapids, MI)
VP candidate word choice notes
- Through 14 speeches/interviews, J.D. Vance mentions the presidential candidates over 800 times combined.
- Through 13 speeches/interviews, Tim Walz mentions the two candidates only 145 times.
- Vance says “illegal” 80 times, while Walz doesn’t say it at all.
- Similarly, Vance says “border” 136 times, while Walz refrains from using it.
- Walz says “healthcare” 30 times, compared to Vance who says it 10 times.
For the Polymarket traders, here’s a more detailed look at the frequency in which the vice presidential candidates have used each word from Polymarket’s mention markets, and when/where they used the words.
VP debate prediction market notes
The notes below are accurate as of Tuesday, Oct. 1 at 8 a.m. ET.
- As of Tuesday morning on Polymarket, over $3M have been bet on markets related to the VP Debate.
- These markets include the following:
- Will there be a VP debate before the election (volume: $1.2MK)
- The number of debates between Vance and Walze (volume: $548K
- Who will win the VP Debate according to polls? (volume: $275K)
- How many viewers will the VP debate get? (volume $47.6K)
- Will Walz and Vance shake hands at first debate? (volume: $60K)
- Who will speak more at the VP debate? (volume: $26K)
- What will Tim Walz say during the VP debate? (volume: $463K)
- What will JD Vance say during the VP debate? (volume: $440K)
- The most popular mention markets are related to how often each VP candidate will mention the presidential candidates.
- Walz said ‘weird’ four times during a recent speech in Grand Rapids, yet there’s only a 50% chance that he’ll say the word on Tuesday.
- JD Vance said ‘Mamaw’ 35 times in the speeches above, including 11 times just last week. A $100 bet that he’ll say it Tuesday currently returns $408 — better than 3-to-1 or +300 in American odds.
