Shares of Trump Media are up another 20% as the ex-president gathers the faithful at Madison Square Garden

The momentum appears to be on Trump’s side in the latter part of the campaign. He did a high-profile three-hour podcast with Joe Rogan before later hosting a rally at a packed Madison Square Garden in New York with his “Dark MAGA” benefactor, Elon Musk.

Shares of Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) rose more than 11% on Friday amid heavy volume – usually a bullish sentiment indicator – and were up more than 8% in early trading on Monday. They have now reached their highest level since mid-July, making the modest social media platform almost as valuable as Elon Musk’s X.

Even skeptics who distrust the heavily favored Trump odds on prediction markets like Polymarket, like hedge fund legend Paul Tudor Jones, are positioning their portfolios to reflect the growing likelihood of a second Trump administration.

Truth Social’s financially troubled parent is now worth a whopping $8.3 billion, a stunning turnaround from September’s historic lows and not far off the estimated $9.4 billion worth of Musk’s much larger X Platform. This despite a significant loss in the second quarter and an embryonic turnover that is approximately equal to the average turnover of four Starbucks stores.

However, traders assume that traffic to the company’s platform will soar if its Truth Social account – currently followed by only 8 million users – becomes the preferred method for his second administration in addressing American voters.

Even political blunders do not seem to dampen enthusiasm for another term in the final days. A comedian and Trump campaigner called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash” at this weekend’s rally at Madison Square Garden and joked that he and a black friend had his carved watermelons for Halloween.

The resurrection of Trump’s political fortunes means TMTG has gained almost a third in value over the past five trading sessions. His own personal 57% stake in the company has also ballooned and now stands at $4.4 billion.

Political pundits are now seeing flashbacks to 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost after much of her campaign messaging revolved around Trump. Pollster Frank Luntz argued last week that the high-flying Harris campaign was similarly derailed when the vice president switched from talking about how she can help ordinary Americans to warning of a second Trump administration.

“She had the best 60 days of any presidential candidate in modern history,” he told CNN. “The moment she became anti-Trump and focused on him and said, ‘Don’t vote for me, vote against him,’ her momentum froze.”

A key example of this is her decision to include Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz Cheney in her campaign, a figure who is deeply unpopular among the Democrats’ left-wing base.

The once-influential neoconservative from Wyoming was one of the few Republicans to turn against Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, even leading a House of Representatives hearing in Congress on the event. Cheney was despised within the Trump-controlled party and was defeated in her 2022 primary.