The 2028 presidential election is roughly three years away, and the prediction markets are already open. This isn't insane — the 2024 markets opened in 2021 — but it does reveal something important: long-horizon prediction markets aren't really forecasts of specific people. They're forecasts of party succession dynamics, ideological trends, and the underlying political environment.
The Republican Succession Question
With Trump constitutionally ineligible for a third term, 2028 marks the first open Republican primary in eight years. The succession market is genuinely interesting: who can claim the MAGA coalition while also appealing beyond it? JD Vance has the institutional advantage as sitting VP. Ron DeSantis tried and failed once. A new generation of Trump-adjacent figures are positioning. The market reflects this genuine uncertainty.
- →JD Vance: VP incumbency advantage, but personal popularity questions
- →Ron DeSantis: early failure doesn't always preclude eventual success
- →Glenn Youngkin/Nikki Haley type: establishment lane has historically been closed
- →Democrat open field: post-Biden, the 2028 Democratic race is wide open
- →Structural factors: which party has fundamentals advantage in 2028?
Long-Horizon Market Accuracy
Boromarket's 2028 markets are explicitly framed as low-confidence, high-uncertainty products. The platform shows estimated confidence bands — and for events 3+ years out, those bands are wide. What the market does well is track how confidence changes as new information arrives: a major political event, a party primary announcement, or a scandal can dramatically shift the distribution even years before the election.
Long-horizon election markets are more about tracking probability evolution than making confident predictions. Trade the change in probability, not the absolute level.