Daily Market Mispricings: 2 Election Events Where We Disagree With Polymarket — May 29, 2026

TL;DRNaly's sharpest election disagreement on May 29, 2026 is Los Angeles mayor: Polymarket prices Karen Bass at 75c YES to finish first in round one, while we mark YES at 38c fair and prefer NO. We also fade Caroline Elliott at 75c YES in British Columbia's Conservative leadership race because ranked-ballot transfer math and fragmented fields make plurality leads look sturdier than they are.

Key Takeaways

Karen Bass is still competitive, but recent Los Angeles polling looks like a volatile three-way race, not a 75% first-place lock.

Caroline Elliott may be the first-choice leader, yet a ranked-ballot leadership contest with multiple viable rivals is not the same thing as a near-certain outright win.

In both markets, Polymarket appears to be overpaying for headline frontrunner status and underpricing variance from field fragmentation, transfers, and late turnout.

Our disagreement is an answer flip in both cases: the market's top answer is YES, while Naly's top answer is NO.

2 Mispricings at a Glance

Event Snapshot

Will Karen Bass finish first in the first round of the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral election?

YES/NO binary Resolves June 2, 2026 Open High confidence

Polymarket Top Answer YES 75%

Naly Top Answer NO 62%

Max Payout if Correct +75c

0c 50c $1.00

Polymarket Naly

Why we disagree: Tight late polling and a split anti-incumbent field make first place far less secure than the market implies.

Event Snapshot

Will Caroline Elliott win the 2026 Conservative Party of British Columbia leadership election?

YES/NO binary Resolves May 30, 2026 Open Medium-high confidence

Polymarket Top Answer YES 75%

Naly Top Answer NO 58%

Max Payout if Correct +75c

0c 50c $1.00

Polymarket Naly

Why we disagree: A first-choice lead around 31% in a ranked, district-weighted contest is not strong enough to justify a three-in-four win price.

How to read this: Polymarket Top Answer and Naly Top Answer show the final answer each side sees as most likely. Max Payout if Correct shows the gross upside from the current quote to the $1 settlement if the selected contract side wins. The horizontal graph still shows where that selected side sits on a 0c to $1 range for Polymarket versus Naly.

Event 1

Will Karen Bass finish first in the first round of the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral election?

PoliticsContract · YES/NO binaryResolves June 2, 2026OpenHigh confidence

+75c

Max Payout if Correct

Polymarket Top Answer YES 75%

Naly Top Answer NO 62%
Trade on Polymarket →

Tight late polling and a split anti-incumbent field make first place far less secure than the market implies.

Causal Chain

Cause Cause bullet: The latest public polling shows Bass leading, but only barely, in a top-three race with meaningful undecided voters.

↓

Effect Effect bullet: In a plurality contest, small shifts in turnout or late consolidation can easily reorder first, second, and third place.

↓

Projection Projection bullet: That structure makes Bass more likely to advance than to finish first, which is why we price YES below even money.

Key Factors

| Factor
▲ | A May 28 UC Berkeley-Los Angeles Times poll reported by ABC7 put Bass at 26%, Nithya Raman at 25%, and Spencer Pratt at 22%, with a 3-point margin of error and 10% undecided.
▲ | An earlier Emerson/Inside California Politics poll reported by FOX 11 had Bass at 30%, Pratt at 22%, and Raman at 19%, also showing a compressed top tier rather than a runaway leader.
▼ | UCLA found 40% undecided in early April, which helps explain why late volatility remains unusually high for a large-city mayoral primary.
▲ | California's top-two system changes the strategic question: Bass does not need to finish first to survive, so a solid path to November is not the same as a strong first-place probability.
▼ | Raman and Pratt draw from different anti-incumbent pools, which raises noise but also raises the odds that one of them wins the late break in attention.

Bayesian Calculation

Base rate: Start from roughly 33% in a competitive three-candidate first-place race, then add a modest incumbent bonus.

Positive update: Bass still appears in first place across recent public polls and benefits from name recognition and institutional support.

Negative update: The newest race read is essentially within polling error, and double-digit undecided voters create outsized finishing-order variance.

Naly estimate: YES 38%, implying a 38c fair price on YES and a 62c fair price on NO.

Alternative explanation: Bass could simply be the least volatile candidate in the field. If her coalition is broader, less online, and more reliable in actual turnout than recent media narratives suggest, she can finish first even in a tight public poll.

What Would Make Us Wrong

We are wrong if the final undecided bloc breaks mainly to the incumbent, or if Raman and Pratt split anti-Bass energy so cleanly that Bass wins the plurality with something like the mid-to-high 20s. A strong older-voter turnout pattern would also help the market case.

Fresh Checks

ABC7: LA mayoral race tightens as incumbent Bass fights for re-election, new poll finds

FOX 11: Bass holds lead in LA mayoral race as Pratt climbs to 2nd, new poll shows

UCLA: Poll finds 40% of voters undecided on next LA mayor

AP: Federal drug raid near downtown Los Angeles spotlights public safety concerns during mayor's race

Event 2

Will Caroline Elliott win the 2026 Conservative Party of British Columbia leadership election?

PoliticsContract · YES/NO binaryResolves May 30, 2026OpenMedium-high confidence

+75c

Max Payout if Correct

Polymarket Top Answer YES 75%

Naly Top Answer NO 58%
Trade on Polymarket →

A first-choice lead around 31% in a ranked, district-weighted contest is not strong enough to justify a three-in-four win price.

Causal Chain

Cause Cause bullet: Elliott appears to lead first-choice support, but well short of a majority in a five-candidate ranked race.

↓

Effect Effect bullet: Once votes transfer across rounds, coalition breadth and district weighting matter more than simple first-ballot lead headlines.

↓

Projection Projection bullet: That makes a front-runner status real but fragile, so we cannot justify a three-in-four win probability.

Key Factors

| Factor
▲ | A May 1-2 Pallas Data poll put Elliott at 31% first choice, Kerry-Lynne Findlay at 24%, and Iain Black at 18%, with 12% undecided.
▲ | The same poll was sponsored by the Elliott campaign, which does not invalidate it but does increase the burden of caution when converting a favorable first-choice snapshot into a 75% outright win price.
▲ | Conservative Party of BC rules use a preferential ballot and district-weighted points, not a simple province-wide popular vote.
▲ | The official party FAQ says each of BC's 93 districts gets 100 points, and transfers continue until someone clears 50% of province-wide points.
▲ | CityNews reported more than 42,000 members eligible in a race dominated by ideological disputes, which raises the odds that second and later preferences matter.
▲ | In ranked elections, a candidate can be the first-round leader and still lose if rival transfer paths or weighted district strength prove stronger than headline first-choice support.

Bayesian Calculation

Base rate: Start around 30% to 35% from Elliott's first-choice position as the nominal frontrunner.

Positive update: She led the only public member poll we found and appears strong in Metro Vancouver.

Negative update: She is still far below majority territory, the poll was campaign-sponsored, and the race uses ranked transfers plus district weighting across 93 ridings.

Naly estimate: YES 42%, implying a 42c fair price on YES and a 58c fair price on NO.

Alternative explanation: The market could be right if Elliott's support is not only largest but also most efficiently distributed, and if ballot exhaustion or weak lower-preference discipline prevents challengers from assembling a stronger transfer coalition.

What Would Make Us Wrong

We are wrong if Elliott's Metro Vancouver strength translates into an overwhelming point advantage, if Black's supporters flow to her at high rates, or if other candidates fail to consolidate a credible anti-Elliott transfer bloc by the final count.

Fresh Checks

Pallas Data: BC Conservative Leadership Poll: Elliott 31, Findlay 24, Black 18

CityNews: Voting open BC Conservative leadership race, winner announced May 30

Conservative Party of BC: Leadership FAQs

The Tyee: The BC Conservative Leadership Race Ends Under a Cloud

Conclusion

For May 29, 2026, our main election call is that both markets are overpaying for the comfort of a visible frontrunner. The next catalysts are straightforward: any final Los Angeles polling or turnout cues that show whether Bass is actually separating from Raman and Pratt, and the May 30 British Columbia leadership count that will reveal whether first-ballot momentum survives ranked transfers and district weighting.

Methodology

Naly's election mispricing method starts with the current market-implied probability, then rebuilds the contract from causal drivers: field fragmentation, turnout structure, transfer rules, coalition breadth, and what the latest evidence actually says about the path to resolution. We compare the market's top answer with our own top answer, convert our probability into a fair cents price on the same binary side, and flag answer flips where the market appears to be overconfident. Our broader calibration record is tracked at /track-record.

Disclaimer

This article is for information and research only, not investment, legal, or voting advice. Prediction markets can move quickly, source data can be incomplete, and low-liquidity political contracts can overreact to headlines. Naly's fair values are probabilistic estimates, not certainties.