[Issue ON] U.S. betting site "Trump wins 65%"...fluctuating conditions

■ Host: anchor Lee Harin
■ Starring: Kim Jin-ah, professor of LD department at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN NewsON] when quoting.

[Anchor]
This time, I'll ask the expert more questions. Kim Jin-ah, a professor of LD department at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, is connected by phone. You're out, right? I'll ask you a question right away. Harris and Trump are flirting like this, so who do you think the professor will win between the two?

[Kim Jin]
I actually have a personal guess. I can't say with 100% certainty, so it's just a close call right now, we'll have to wait and see.

[Anchor]
I think that's the most honest answer. However, a political betting site predicted a 65% chance of winning Trump. How should I interpret the betting site's predictions?

[Kim Jin]
As the forecast market rapidly changes toward Trump's victory, some questions are being raised in the United States as well. Betting sites, polymarkets, for example, this had almost the same probability of winning Harris versus Trump up until two weeks ago. But recently, Trump 62, Harris 38, the odds have changed significantly. However, bets in favor of Trump occur again in many places at the same time. There seems to be a lot of controversy over this, but in the case of the Wall Street Journal, some argue that such betting is a strategy of the Trump campaign to create a buzz on social media and to give the public the perception that candidate Trump is ahead. So I think it would be much better to look at it with traditional poll results.

[Anchor]
The market is responding right away because there are reports that Trump's chances of winning the election have risen. There was a time when the price of bitcoin exceeded 67,000 dollars and 92 million won in our money, so why?

[Kim Jin]
If you look at the presidential candidates' positions on cryptocurrency, there is a slight difference. Candidate Trump has proposed a relatively favorable policy when it comes to cryptocurrency. If you compare Harris and Trump's policies, there are differences in coin mining and bank regulation, and Trump is known to support bitcoin mining. And I also publicly promised to allow banks to participate in blockchain. So overall, the difference in policy on cryptocurrency ended up being a bit of a shelf-life, along with the rise of candidate Trump that we're seeing right now, so here's an aspect that we can see.

[Anchor]
You analyzed that it is related to targeting the settlement of cryptocurrency, but should I understand in the same context that gold prices are fluctuating?

[Kim Jin]
In the case of gold prices, it's hard to predict the presidential election right now. Then, we have to continue to prepare for financial market instability now. Then, we find safe assets because of uncertainty. In that case, there is a side where demand is concentrated toward gold, so this part seems to fluctuate a little.

[Anchor]
And it's news this morning that it's possible that Trump will declare victory before the vote count is complete. And Harris is preparing for that, so how do you interpret this?

[Kim Jin]
This is what we went through in 2020 and we need to think about this. At the time, even before Trump's vote was counted, Vice President Harris declared in advance that this month, especially I won. Four years ago, it was as if the game was over, but the result came out as a defeat, so we couldn't accept the election result. That's why I'm concerned about the possibility that if candidate Trump loses the election again, the election may be stolen and that he will quickly declare victory with the advance stone. So, I think the Democratic Party is talking about this because it is concerned about the confusion that will arise again after the election, and that we need to prepare for this.

[Anchor]
In the end, the decision to win or lose will be seven key contenders. What would be the most important area among them?

[Kim Jin]
Among the contending states, I keep looking at Pennsylvania. Because in Wisconsin and Michigan, the Democratic Party has the upper hand and is being pursued, but in the end, Pennsylvania has the largest number of electors among the battlegrounds. If the Democratic Party doesn't win here, it will lose the election in the end. So Pennsylvania has been changing its ranking from first to second until October, and Republicans are intensively targeting it here.

It's very confusing, especially because of the Middle East, but there are actually quite a few Jewish Americans in this region. So, we see the Republican Party using anti-Semitic events as an opportunity to reach out a little bit to Jewish voters who are shaken by these things. Jews make up about 3.4% of Pennsylvania as the state's total population, which can make up a margin of less than 1%.

So the scale itself cannot be ignored. Former President Trump has implemented another pro-Jewish policy during his tenure. So there is a very favorable aspect, and geographically, the north is an area where mining is developed, and gas and natural resource development are important, which is advantageous for Republicans. Because the Democratic Party of Korea is putting forward eco-friendly policies, it continues to have considerable difficulty attracting votes now. So Pennsylvania, let me tell you that the future direction is very important.

[Anchor]
Shy Trump, who supports Trump but cannot say he supports Trump, has been a variable in the election. I haven't heard much of Shy Harris. Don't you have Shy Harris?

[Kim Jin]
Shy Harris seems to be a problem because, in the end, how many anti-Trump voters we can attract within the Republican Party, this becomes an important variable. That's why Harris keeps repeating the message that Trump threatens democracy. Compared to the last election, Trump's approval rating in the Republican Party has fallen slightly. That means there are some leavers. So there must be numbers that we don't catch in predicting the outcome of the election. That's one of the reasons why they say predictions are more difficult in the future.

[Anchor]
Now Harris is publicly supported by Taylor Swift. Trump is backed by Musk. How much of this celebrity's public support will affect the outcome of the election?

[Kim Jin]
If I have to compare, I think Elon Musk's influence is quite large right now. SpaceX video, this is also a Tesla robot show during the same period, and people in the U.S. continue to talk about Elon Musk, and Elon Musk himself continues to be busy with competing stocks. Recently, Pennsylvania has been supporting Trump by attending a rally in support of him. As for Elon Musk, I think he'll try to give the Republican side a boost even if it's because of SpaceX and this space industry. Because the Trump camp has put forward a policy that is quite advantageous for human space development. That's why it's important for Trump to have allies, and he's now far behind Harris, the Democrat, especially in campaign fundraising.

It's a situation where advertising costs are disappointing at an important time. But Elon Musk can play a big role in campaign finance for the rest of the year because he has the advantage of being easy and accessible to billionaires. So we can predict that these two continue to have a win-win relationship with each other and will continue to do so.

[Anchor]
I'll give you the last question. In terms of practicality, who should be elected more in Korea?

[Kim Jin]
I judge that there are pros and cons to this. You can't just look at Korea separately. It is important to determine what benefits and losses South Korea will take in its global strategy, and even if Harris becomes a candidate, he is likely to declare practical diplomacy when compared to the Biden administration. Although the range of change is relatively small compared to the Trump election scenario.

However, even if Trump becomes a candidate, the pressure to make alliances, defense cost sharing, role sharing, and this fairer will naturally increase, but more importantly, public checks are important for the United States. That's why allies that help keep the public in check, and those that help the United States develop new technologies and science and technology that the United States can't do alone, will be very valuable. If that happens, the countries that are selected, the countries that are not selected, the rankings will change. So, I think what kind of strategy Korea uses in this process will be the next most important. In short, regarding North Korea, any government will probably see the priority as low. And for long-term dialogue in the future, various incentives, including sanctions relief, are quite necessary. That's why we're talking. To mobilize this, the walls of Parliament are quite high. It has to be done while considering all the legal and institutional procedures. That's why everything that's hard to try in a very short period of time is the same.

[Anchor]
We've even looked at how the two-week change in U.S. votes will affect our country. So far, I have been with Kim Jin-ah, a professor of LD department at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Thank you.