Traders Favor Noem over Jackley, Whose Shares Dip on Sexual Harassment Alarm

For more election tea-leafery, an eager reader turns my attention toward PredictIt’s newly opened prediction market on the South Dakota Republican primary race for Governor. After just one full day on this online market, Kristi Noem’s shares are holding steady at 70 cents while Marty Jackley’s shares have dropped from 40 cents to 30 cents.

According to PredictIt’s New Zealand operator, Victoria University of Wellington, the share prices generally correspond to the chances participants think each candidate has of winning. Thus, the aggregate sense on PredictIt is that Noem has a 70% chance of winning on June 5. Once the election is over, winners get one US dollar per share (with the exchange taking a 10% cut of the profit) while losers’ shares become worthless.

As of this Friday breakfast writing, the market has traded 145 Noem shares and 888 Jackley shares. PredictIt traders were pretty accurate about the May 22 primaries but had mixed success in calling the May 15 primaries.

Jackley’s dip on this prediction market coincided with Laura Zylstra Kaiser’s damning press conference yesterday about the state’s foot-dragging on paying her sexual harassment/retaliation settlement and Noem’s declaration that Jackley’s involvement in LZK’s story “indicates poor judgment” and that LZK’s story “needs to be told.” After using his  Attorney General’s office to claim that LZK’s settlement wasn’t delayed, Jackley more properly spoke through his campaign to whimper that Noem is going negative, that he “had no authority over the Kaiser settlement,” and that he “has been a tireless advocate for victims.”

Gee, is there really any way to talk about the state delaying a sexual harassment settlement to pressure the victim not to talk bad about the state officials, including Marty Jackley, who didn’t take her true claims of sexual harassment seriously and who allowed the good-old-boys’ law enforcement network (of which Jackley is chief) to destroy the victim’s career? Can Jackley really claim to be a tireless advocate for victims when he denied LZK’s request to be retransferred from her punitive station in Pierre back to her family in Aberdeen?

The PredictIt numbers and Jackley’s poor press performance this week tempt me to revise my election prediction of 58–42 Jackley to 50–50, with anything possible in next week’s debates (Tuesday on SDPB, Thursday on KSFY). But this is the Republican primary, and charges of sexual harassment and retaliation against cops, although true, may not move the needle much among voters who make excuses for sexual harassers or deny that the problem exists in Pierre.

PredictIt does not yet have a market for South Dakota’s Congressional primary among Dusty Johnson, Shantel Krebs, and Neal Tapio.