**Thomas Miller’s Real-Time Election Tracker Shows Tightening Race in 2024**

Thomas Miller, a data scientist at Northwestern University, has been diligently forecasting the 2024 presidential race with a unique approach: analyzing data from the political betting site PredictIt rather than conventional polls. Since June 8, Miller has provided daily updates on his homepage, the Virtual Tout, with the latest predictions posted each day at midnight EST.

Recently, on October 29, Miller unveiled a new feature on his website that continuously displays the forecasted electoral vote count based on PredictIt odds. This real-time tracker updates every minute, offering election watchers an unprecedented, constantly refreshed view of the race. "It's like having your own personal ticker tape for the presidential election," says Miller.

In the past, Miller has successfully utilized PredictIt to make highly accurate predictions, including for the 2020 presidential race and the subsequent Georgia Senate runoffs. He favors PredictIt because of its responsiveness to campaign events, and he has devised a model to convert betting prices into popular vote shares with various corrections, such as adjusting for the slight Republican bias among PredictIt’s predominantly male, sports-betting users.

As of 3 p.m. on October 29, Miller's real-time ticker showed Trump/Vance leading with 345 electoral votes, compared to Harris/Walz’s 193. Although Trump maintains a substantial lead, Miller points out that Harris/Walz have seen recent gains, with their count up by one electoral vote since the previous midnight, while Trump/Vance’s count fell by the same margin. This follows a peak for Trump on October 26, when he reached an all-time high of 367 electoral votes.

The race has become more dynamic, particularly after a controversial Trump rally on October 27, which seems to have affected his support among Hispanic voters. Simultaneously, increased interest and higher trading volumes on PredictIt—up to 41,000 trades from a past average of 37,000 daily—suggest growing volatility and unpredictability in the race.

Miller also observes that targeted advertising by betting sites, mainly to Republican-leaning audiences, might be skewing the betting dynamics. This could explain Trump's surge in October, despite a lack of typical milestones that drive such movements. "The volatility, new people entering the betting markets, the effect of the ads, all make the outcome increasingly unpredictable," says Miller.

Despite these fluctuations, Miller remains cautious in changing his original forecast of a probable Trump victory. However, he acknowledges the mounting uncertainty and advises election observers to check his new real-time ticker tape for what could be the most up-to-date predictions.