Nov 2: Eisenkot hits 50, then meets Lieberman. And Texas on the eve of the midterms

Cold open

Maya: On Sunday evening, the market gave the opposition leader, Gadi Eisenkot, a fifty percent chance to be Israel's next prime minister. For about an hour.

Daniel: Then came a report on what Lieberman thinks of his plan. And by eleven at night, it was forty three again.

Maya: This is The Poly Brief. It's Monday, November second. I'm Maya.

Daniel: And I'm Daniel. Every day we take the biggest moves on Polymarket, show you where the odds stand, and ask: why is the market betting this way?

Maya: Today: Israel's coalition math, and the US midterms, one day out. With Texas, and a peek at twenty twenty eight. But first, a quick one. Who called it?

Who Called It

Daniel: On October twenty ninth, the market gave the Likud party twenty five to twenty nine seats. Ninety eight point four percent.

Daniel: With every vote counted, the Likud party has twenty seven. The market has settled on that range. Market called it.

Maya: To be fair, by then the count was ninety percent done. That one was less a prediction and more a reading test.

Story 1: Israel

Maya: Story one. The board. Israel's next prime minister. Gadi Eisenkot: forty three and a half percent. Up nine in a day.

Daniel: Benjamin Netanyahu: thirty five and a half. Down six. Lieberman at five, Bennett at four. About one point three million dollars traded in the last day.

Maya: Remind me. Last Wednesday, Netanyahu was at forty six and a half.

Daniel: And on Thursday, Eisenkot fell to twenty five. Since then he's gained more than eighteen points. And not one new vote has been counted.

Maya: So where do the seats stand?

Daniel: Netanyahu's bloc, fifty three. Eisenkot's bloc, forty eight. The Arab parties, nineteen. Nobody has sixty one.

Daniel: But the next step isn't sixty one. It's recommendations. Each party tells President Herzog who it wants. Ynet counts sixty for Eisenkot, if both Arab parties back him, and forty six for Netanyahu.

Maya: And the ones in the middle?

Daniel: Two parties with seven seats each. Lieberman's party, and United Torah Judaism, the ultra Orthodox party. It's counted in Netanyahu's bloc, but it hasn't said who it will recommend.

Maya: So why did the market move on Sunday?

Daniel: Number one: a plan. On Sunday morning, Ynet reported that Eisenkot is looking at a minority government. It would win its first vote forty nine to forty six, with twenty five members abstaining.

Daniel: The abstentions would come from the ultra Orthodox party and from Arab parties. Eisenkot's own party said the reports were not issued with its approval.

Maya: A government where the most important people are the ones who don't vote.

Daniel: Number two: Naftali Bennett. On Sunday evening, his party, with Yair Lapid, said it will recommend Gadi Eisenkot.

Daniel: We opened the trades. The climb started around a quarter past eight in the evening in Israel, a few minutes before the first report we found. Gadi Eisenkot went from forty two to forty seven in ten minutes, and touched fifty an hour later.

Daniel: The whole climb was about twenty five thousand dollars, from seventy nine accounts. The biggest single bet: five thousand dollars.

Maya: And number three?

Daniel: The ultra Orthodox party. On Saturday night, senior rabbis told its members to make every effort to normalize the status of yeshiva students. That's about the draft exemption.

Daniel: On Sunday, it said it may not recommend anyone at all. And Meir Porush told Ynet that Gadi Eisenkot hasn't even called them.

Maya: So the market is pricing a phone call that hasn't happened.

Maya: The other side. Why it fell back to forty three.

Daniel: First, Lieberman. Late on Sunday, Ynet reported a tense meeting between him and Gadi Eisenkot. His line: anyone who wants to rely on supporters of terrorism is welcome to do so. His party will not be there.

Daniel: Back in October, he already said he won't support any minority government. And around eleven at night, Israel time, Gadi Eisenkot slid from forty eight to forty two. That drop was about five and a half thousand dollars. The timing fits. We can't prove it's the reason.

Daniel: Second, Shas. Its leader, Aryeh Deri, says his party won't join a government without the Likud party.

Daniel: Third, Benjamin Netanyahu himself. Ynet reports that in closed meetings he said: I am not completely ruling out any option. That includes a rotation with Gadi Eisenkot.

Daniel: And President Herzog is pushing for unity. His words on Sunday: stop climbing trees, and face the reality. He says he'll try to put up ladders.

Maya: A president handing out ladders. That's the most Israeli sentence of the week.

Daniel: Herb Keinon, at the Jerusalem Post, wrote that Benjamin Netanyahu is firmly in the driver's seat. And that another election wouldn't necessarily hurt him.

Maya: What to watch. Lieberman's party meets today, with a statement after.

Daniel: On Wednesday, the official results go to the president, and the consultations can start the same day. The new Knesset is sworn in on November tenth. And Herzog has until the eleventh to hand someone the mandate.

Maya: Bottom line: Gadi Eisenkot is up because of a plan that needs the ultra Orthodox to sit on their hands, and Lieberman to look away. Neither has agreed. That's why forty three, and not sixty.

Daniel: If coalition math is your kind of thriller, hit follow. We do one every morning.

Bridge

Maya: Daniel, you were late this morning.

Daniel: My phone and my oven disagree about what time it is.

Maya: Which one won?

Daniel: The oven. The phone changed the clock, the oven didn't. So I trusted the oven.

Maya: You trusted the appliance over the network.

Daniel: It felt more independent.

Maya: Well, America turned its clocks back on Sunday. And tomorrow, it votes.

Story 2: The midterms, one day out

Maya: Story two. The board. Texas governor. Republican Greg Abbott: fifty eight percent. Down eight in a day.

Daniel: On Saturday he was at about sixty nine. Democrat Gina Hinojosa, a state representative from Austin, is at forty one and a half.

Maya: And the last time Texas elected a Democrat statewide?

Daniel: Not since nineteen ninety four. Thirty two years. As for Abbott, he won his last race by eleven points. He's going for a fourth term. And over the summer, he had about sixty seven million dollars in the bank. She had about three.

Maya: So why is the market nervous?

Daniel: Number one: the final poll from The New York Times, out on Sunday. Hinojosa forty eight, Abbott forty seven. The pollster's director said Texas is too close to call.

Daniel: The drop came on Sunday night, Eastern time. About fifteen thousand dollars, sixty two accounts. No big player this time. The poll's page has a date, but no time, so we can't say exactly how close they were.

Daniel: Number two: turnout. About six million Texans voted in person in the first eleven days of early voting. In twenty twenty two, the whole early period was five point one million.

Maya: Texas. Everything's bigger, including the line at the polling station.

Maya: And the Senate?

Daniel: Democrats, seventy one and a half percent. Democrats taking both chambers, seventy and a half. Republicans hold fifty three seats. Democrats need to gain four.

Daniel: The same New York Times poll had Democrats ahead in all seven Senate races it polled. Including Texas, where James Talarico leads Ken Paxton fifty to forty three.

Maya: The other side.

Daniel: First, the average. RealClearPolling still has Abbott ahead by two and a half, and calls it a toss-up.

Daniel: Second, history. Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster, found that ninety three percent of Senate polls in Iowa, Michigan and Ohio overestimated the Democrat. That's according to Politico.

Daniel: His line: we can get the environment right, but the map wrong.

Maya: So the polls are either a blue wave, or a blue mirage. We'll know on Wednesday.

Maya: One more, from Polymarket's homepage. The twenty twenty eight Democratic nominee.

Daniel: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sixteen percent. Gavin Newsom, fifteen and a half. And Jon Ossoff, fourteen and a half. A three way tie.

Maya: Ossoff is on the ballot tomorrow, in Georgia.

Daniel: He is. And in an interview with MS Now, he said he has zero interest in running for president in twenty twenty eight. In a debate, he promised to serve the full six years.

Maya: So the market heard zero interest, and gave him fourteen and a half.

Daniel: And Kamala Harris, who led a FocalData poll this summer with thirty three percent? Five and a half on Polymarket. She says she might run. Newsom says he wouldn't run if she ran.

Maya: What to watch. Tuesday night, Eastern time. Georgia closes at seven. Most of Texas, Maine and Michigan at eight. Most of Alaska at midnight.

Daniel: And Alaska's ranked choice count waits until after November eighteenth. So the Senate may not be called on election night. We'll be back with who called it.

Maya: Bottom line: after one poll, Abbott is down eleven points since Saturday. Fifty eight percent is the market saying: probably. Not: relax, it's Texas.

Close

Maya: That's The Poly Brief. Every article and number is linked in the description.

Daniel: And a reminder: these odds are prices, not prophecies. Nothing here is investment advice. Seventy one and a half percent for Democrats in the Senate still means more than one time in four, Republicans keep it.

Maya: If this helped, follow or subscribe, leave us a rating, and send it to the friend who already has three maps open for Tuesday night.

Daniel: Tomorrow is election day. We're here every morning. See you tomorrow!