Michigan’s Polling Mirage

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</div></div></div><p></p><p></p><div><div><div><div><div><p><span>On Monday, less than 24 hours before </span><span><strong>Michigan</strong></span><span> Democrats went to the polls, </span><span><strong>CNN </strong></span><span>chief data analyst </span><span><strong>Harry Enten</strong></span><span> told viewers that </span><span><strong>Abdul El-Sayed</strong></span><span> was poised to "deliver the biggest blow yet" to the party establishment. His main piece of evidence for the pronouncement was odds from </span><span><strong>Kalshi</strong></span><span>, the prediction market, which gave El-Sayed a 98% chance of winning the nomination, “way up like a rocket" from April.</span></p></div><div><p><span>Enten and </span><span><strong>“CNN News Central”</strong></span><span> co-anchor </span><span><strong>Sara Sidner </strong></span><span>went on to discuss how disruptive a blowout victory would be for Democrats. It would add to the narrative, Enten said, that the party would need “major changes.”</span></p></div><div><p><span>El-Sayed did end up defeating </span><span><strong>Haley Stevens</strong></span><span>—by a single percentage point and 15,000 votes, per unofficial results. But the end result was a much different picture than what many reporters and pundits painted going into Tuesday night.</span></p></div><div><div><p><span>It wasn’t unreasonable for Enten to cite those numbers. Kalshi did not invent those odds out of thin air, even if Enten’s use of them was notable given CNN’s </span><span><a href="https://news.kalshi.com/p/kalshi-cnn-prediction-market-partnership">off… partnership</a></span><span> with the prediction market. (A spokesperson noted that prediction markets “offer just one source of data that journalists can use in telling a story.”) But the Michigan race…</span></p></div></div><div><div><p><span><strong>The rest of this story is for paid subscribers only.</strong></span></p></div><div><p><span><strong>Already a subscriber? </strong></span><span><a href="https://www.status.news/login"><strong>Sign in</strong></a></span><span><strong>.</strong></span></p></div><div><p><span><strong>Scoop-driven reporting and sharp-edged analysis. See why The Wall Street Journal declared </strong></span><span><strong><em>Status</em></strong></span><span><strong> a “must-read.”</strong></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><p></p></div>