Manifold, the "NYC of Social Prediction Markets"

Zohran vs Cuomo, Khamenei vs Netanyahu, Haliburton vs Gilgeous-Alexander

Jun 24, 2025

The NYC Mayoral Democratic Primary, the “NYC of NYC Mayoral Elections”

While most are treating the general election for mayor as a foregone conclusion, following the results of the Democratic primary, the election will not be entirely decided after the polls close this evening. While nothing is certain in prediction markets, the tendency of seemingly one-sided elections to drift their way into uncertain territory has been a strong trend this year (see: Canada, Romania, Poland, and of course this very primary).

Manifold traders give high odds to the likelihood that, should either Cuomo or Mamdani lose the primary, they will still run in the general election this fall.

The four likeliest candidates to be elected mayor: Cuomo, Mamdani, Adams, and Sliwa, are all polarizing (they are indeed the four candidates with the highest unfavorability ratings in this race). This implies that a four-way election this fall could have some unexpected dynamics, complicated by the fact that the general election in November will be first-past-the-post, not a ranked-choice ballot.

In the last two mayoral elections, the Republican candidates (Sliwa in 2021 and Malliotakis in 2017) garnered about 28% support. Sliwa will probably achieve similar support this year. Independent candidates such as Jim Walden and write-in votes are likely to account for 3-5%, as they have in the past two elections. Let’s assume the lower end of this range, as in a four-way race, there will be more options for voters dissatisfied with the top two candidates.

This leaves ~69% for Mamdani, Cuomo, and Adams to fight over. Check out hypothetical general-election polling from Emerson (these are month-old numbers FYI):

Conditional on either Cuomo or Mamdani losing and then running third-party, this could become a fairly muddled race. Adams’ floor seems around 10-15%, but other prediction markets give him decent odds of finishing in second place in the general election, implying a much higher ceiling. Manifold traders indeed give him 6% odds of winning the election outright. Despite his terrible favorability numbers (though still far better than, say, the progressive mayor of Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson), Adams has been earning some muted praise lately as his scandals grow slightly more distant and after a presidential pardon a couple months ago put to bed the imminent legal threats to him personally. He could benefit from a direct comparison to the DSA-aligned Mamdani or the similarly scandal-plagued Cuomo.

If Adams could raise his numbers to ~20%, that leaves under 50% for Mamdani and Cuomo to fight over in the general election. Judging from the close margins expected in tonight’s primary, that could lead to a closer-than-expected outcome this fall were they both to run.

Back to today’s primary, Manifold expects a close race that will be decided in a drawn-out ranked-choice runoff. As recently as the end of May, Mamdani was given only 7% odds to win the primary. His odds soared in June as polling showed him as a credible threat to Cuomo and as endorsements came in from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. Final polling numbers and reports of early voting patterns have helped his odds soar to parity with Cuomo (indeed, even surpassing him) over the last 24 hours.

Early voting numbers show elevated youth participation, a heat-wave may reduce turnout by elderly voters, and Mamdani has shown significant momentum in the polls, all helping his case. However, Cuomo’s higher name recognition, success with minority voting blocs in NYC, and consistent lead in the polls for most of the campaign (including when early votes may have been locked in) may prove difficult to overcome.

Manifold bettors expect Cuomo to win the first round of voting, but results won’t become clear for weeks, potentially. The ranked-choice runoff isn’t tabulated until July 1st and in a close race, it may take another week or more to finalize results. And the race indeed looks like it will be tight:

Tehran, the “NYC of Iran”

In the previous Manifold newsletter, we discussed the start of the renewed conflict between Iran and Israel, and potential US involvement. Well… things have changed a lot since then. The US got involved, Iran demonstrated willingness to de-escalate, the US attempted to broker a ceasefire, and the ceasefire is now tenuous.

You can see some of the wild intra-day swings in the market as conflicting media reports on the veracity of the ceasefire played out:

Similar swings played out in another market on Iran’s response to the US’s attacks. In that case, Iran’s missiles towards a US base in Qatar were (1) communicated in advance to the Qataris who relayed them to the Americans, (2) clearly meant to never cause casualties, so as to de-escalate the conflict while saving face, and (3) were all intercepted except for one, which landed in an unoccupied area of the base. Ultimately, reports of marginal damages caused by that last missile led this market to controversially resolve YES by the letter of the criteria:

The critical underground site of Fordow, which Israel didn’t have the bunker-busting capabilities to strike, was instead struck by US B-2 bombers. While initially this seemed to have put the site out of commission, further media reports, relying in part on US intelligence assessments, have raised doubt as to whether these strikes were as effective as intended. Manifold traders are now mixed on whether Fordow was indeed destroyed.

In general, forecasters have had difficulties predicting concrete actions in this conflict, which has straddled a fine line between a short conflict and a prolonged and escalating war. Iran’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz now looks to be retracted, and media reports on ships turning back might have been premature.

The odds of Khamenei remaining head of state for the remainder of the year have now risen back up to 54% after falling into the 30’s: this conflict represents only one of three risks to his reign (health and succession plans being the other two).

And against all odds, Trump appears to have refrained from blaming Biden for the escalation between Iran and Israel so far:

Oklahoma City, the “NYC of the NBA”

Going into the NBA playoffs, the OKC Thunder, dominant during the regular season, were the title favorites, with about 35-40% chance of winning. The Pacers were barely a blip on anyone’s radar, as the 4th seed in the Eastern Conference, and Manifold traders gave them just a 1% chance of bringing their first championship home to Indiana.

However, in the finals, they took a 2-1 lead (and a brief lead in Manifold's odds), and stretched the series out to 7 games. In game 7, the star of the Pacers, Tyrese Haliburton, tore his ACL in the first quarter, leading to an unfortunate end to the season, and eternal glory for the Oklahoma City Thunder and their ascendant superstar, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Shai, who was always the favorite to win Finals MVP, can add that to his trophy shelf alongside regular season MVP and Conference Finals MVP for this year.

The Thunder, who have a deep bench of young, improving stars, a treasure trove of trade assets, and a good fiscal situation for a contending team, look to dominate the league for years to come. Even in an era of intense parity, the Thunder have three times the odds of the next-best team to take the 2026 title home as well. OKC, which as of late has been called the “NYC of the NBA,” perhaps will go up against the actual NYC Knicks next year in the Finals, after that matchup was denied by the heroics of Haliburton in the third round of the playoffs.