@AlQuinn thesis for Musk with at least a 50/50 split with Trump: dude has 200M Twitter followers and is a gigachad with big rocket ships exploding and doing cartwheels and shit. Hard to say definitively but Musk may have been decisive in energizing more marginal voters and non-voters to turn out, and thereby, swing Trump to a solid win margin. I can imagine the cover showing a hydra with Trump and Musk as its heads. Musk Derangement Syndrome shares much in common with TDS so they will get great sales to deranged hate-readers.

You're gonna give me 100-1 odds on Harris? Sure. Time has done weirder things. Harris is without a doubt a big part of the story of 2024, even having lost.

https://manifold.markets/itsTomekK/who-will-become-2024-person-of-the

Different paper, similiar market

At this point:

The most likely outcome: either they give it to Trump alone or they give it to Trump + Elon (MAYBE Trump + Vance but I don't see them really caring about Vance).

The funniest potentially likely outcome: they snub trump and give it to Elon for his very busy year, forming the cracks that end up as a major rift between the two

The funniest possible outcome: they give it to Biden anyway

I just don't see how Harris isn't gonna be picked if she wins. Given, other markets say it's 50%, I have to buy this at 45% here.

@Mullet4MyV It's possible that the "person of the year" will be shared. In 2020, they picked Biden and Harris. If they do the same thing this year and pick Harris and Walz, Harris would only resolve to 50%.

The funniest possible outcome would be them doing Biden anyway, so i have no choice but to root for it

@Marnix Giving it to Harris/Biden (as opposed to 2020's Biden/Harris) would honestly make a lot of sense if she wins; she might be the star of the show, but Biden choosing to bow out of the race and let his understudy fly will be looked at as 2024's decisive turning point if the Dems eek out a narrow victory. Future leaders in Biden's position will be a lot more motivated to set aside their ambitions if we set a precedent of rewarding them for it, instead of casting them aside afterwards.

Can anyone give me the rundown on the likelihood of Time snubbing both Harris and Trump? Is the US election simply too big to ignore?

@vitamind If Kamala gets elected she's a lock; anyone who went from a largely overlooked and sidelined VP to the president-elect in ~4 months would have a strong case for POTY, but snubbing the USA's first female president is unthinkable.

Trump could get snubbed, since people would argue that it's a retread of his 2016 win, and his influence on American politics is not so new and shocking anymore. But he's still pretty likely to make POTY if he's elected, especially with the assassination attempts. If TIME picks neither, it will probably be for a set of people, e.g. "The Victims of War."

@Jonagold oh yeah first female president, forgot that would be the case, I think you're probably spot on here - thanks.

@vitamind Since 1932 there's been 4 snubbed presidents-elect (Eisenhower, JFK, Nixon, and Bush Sr.), but all were chosen PotY in other non-election years. On the other hand, the only reelected incumbents who were chosen PotY were Nixon (shared), G.W. Bush, and Obama.

You might infer some special circumstances from the list of US election winners since 1932, whether the president-elect or reelected incumbent was chosen Y/N (actual TPotY or other notes). I've marked the exception years mentioned above with a [P] for snubbed presidents-elect and [R] for chosen reelected incumbents:

1932 FDR Y (repeated in non-election year '34)

1936 N (Wallis Simpson)

1940 N (Churchill, but FDR chosen a third time the following year)

1944 N (Eisenhower)

1948 Truman Y (already chosen in '45)

[P] 1952 Eisenhower N (Elizabeth II accession was obvious pick, and Ike already chosen in '44)

1956 N ("The Hungarian freedom fighter" chosen, but Ike repeated in '59)

[P] 1960 JFK N (somehow "US Scientists" chosen but JFK got it the following year)

1964 LBJ Y (and repeated in '67 but was a negative mark)

[P] 1968 Nixon N ("The Apollo 8 astronauts" chosen, later Nixon in '71 and his '72 reelection)

[R] 1972 Y (shared PotY with Kissinger)

1976 Carter Y

1980 Reagan Y (then repeated in '83 shared with Andropov posthumously)

1984 N (Peter Ueberroth got it for that year's LA Summer Olympics, weird imo)

[P] 1988 Bush Sr. N ("The endangered Earth" chosen then Bush got it in '90 for the Gulf War)

1992 Clinton Y (repeated in '98 shared with Ken Starr)

1996 N (David Ho for HIV cure)

2000 Dubya Y

[R] 2004 Y

2008 Obama Y

[R] 2012 Y

2016 Trump Y

2020 Biden Y (shared with Kamala)

Presidents-elect 10/14 71.4% (7/8 87.5% since '76 Carter)

Reelected incumbents 3/9 33.3% (though last 2/2)

Edit to add sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States

Lina Khan

Betting up Netanyahu because Israel pulled off the biggest public humiliation in decades.

I cannot imagine a world where the first woman is elected president, but doesn’t win Time person of the year. She is trading at 43% for the Time question and 53% for the election. You could drive a truck through that inefficiency.

@ClarkBacon it's people hedging that it will be split

Kendrick Lamar isn't an option?

In case you want to bet on 2025

I've got a little on Musk now, partly his recent activities partly because it makes some sense as a "Trump gets elected but we don't want to give it to Trump again" situation.

.2% seemed low given that.

Jack Schlossberg

Love that guy.

I'm surprised Trump is still so low (currently 16%). He has lowered in the election market (currently 45%, was just briefly at 56%), but that implies a ~2/3 chance he's president-elect but not Time POTY. However, the president-elect has been Time POTY every cycle since 2000, and from a historical perspective, Trump's re-election would probably entrench the effects his first term and second campaign had on US culture and conservative politics.

I could see it as a general Trump-fatigue. Even if he wins, I don't expect Times journalists to be super excited to write another story about him. They could potentially look for a different topic that is significant as well, whereas for Kamala they wouldn't accept anything else.

@Jacy While I think he's very likely to be picked if he wins, he might be featured alongside JD Vance, which would resolve the market 50% Trump and 50% Vance.