Chow enters Toronto's mayoral vote as the traders' clear favourite

Her contract sank to 43% on 21 Oct and climbed back to 77% the day before it resolves.

In one line: Olivia Chow is the traders' favourite to beat Brad Bradford for Toronto mayor, at 77% against his 23%, a price that still underrates her.

Traders give Olivia Chow a 77% chance of winning Toronto's mayoral election, which the venue's rule says is scheduled for 26 Oct, today. Her Polymarket contract stood at 76% on 19 Oct, fell to 43% on 21 Oct, then rose 34pp from that low to reach 77% on 26 Oct, touching 82% on 25 Oct along the way.

Over the 7 days the contract is up 1pp. In the last 24 hours it gained 14.5pp, by the venue's own figure, and it now sits 5pp below the 25 Oct high. The only other contract in the event, on Brad Bradford, trades at 23% and accounts for almost all the probability outside Chow.

The week began and ends within a point of 76%, which makes the slide to 43% on 21 Oct the outlier, not the trend. Traders who marked Chow down that day had reversed the bet by 25 Oct. A price that volatile, falling to 43% and recovering to 82% inside one week, keeps returning to the upper seventies, and that resting level is the better guide to what traders expect from the count.

The call: Chow wins, and 77% underrates her, because the price still carries some of the doubt from a 21 Oct dip that traders had reversed by 25 Oct. Bradford's best case is the 21 Oct low of 43%, when traders came closest to pricing a genuine contest; a tight count would prove it right. The call is wrong if a consensus of credible reporting names Bradford as the next mayor, or if the Chow contract trades below 50% on 27 Oct, the day it resolves.