Who Will be Trump's Next Attorney General?

Author Cheryle Shepstone

Cheryle Shepstone

Director of Content

Cheryle is Director of Content and Strategy at DeFi Rate. She oversees the prediction market research, platform reviews, and editorial methodology behind every guide—from primary source verification through final fact-ch…

Editor Christopher Feery

Christopher Feery

Christopher has been writing professionally since 2014, with a focus on casinos and sports betting. After New Jersey legalized sports betting in 2018, he shifted his full attention to the gambling industry, joining Caten…

Lee Zeldin leads the next-AG prediction markets at 48% on Polymarket. The second-most-priced outcome isn’t Todd Blanche (18%) or any other named candidate — it’s “no announcement by June 30,” trading at 27% and climbing. Under 28 USC Section 508, Trump can keep Blanche running DOJ indefinitely without a confirmation vote, which is why traders are pricing the delay itself as a real outcome. The markets got Bondi’s firing right before the White House did. If you are handicapping the next AG, you need to read the delay line as seriously as the frontrunner.

Who traders are pricing in

The candidate set shifts as reporting develops, but the names below hold the top odds and the bulk of trading volume across every iteration of the AG market since Bondi’s removal.

Zeldin and Blanche odds

Zeldin sits at roughly 48% on Polymarket, Blanche at 18%. Zeldin has the reporting, Blanche has the seat — and neither has a clean confirmation path.

Zeldin has been named by CNN as the candidate Trump mentions most frequently in private discussions, with similar reporting from AP, Bloomberg, and the New York Times in the days following Bondi’s firing. He cleared a Senate vote in January 2025 on a 56-42 count to run EPA, but AG is a different kind of scrutiny, and his legal resume — Army JAG Corps, a short civil practice, no prosecutor’s office — is what senators will press on.

Blanche’s 18% reflects a pattern that acting AGs rarely convert to permanent nominees. The acting occupant typically sits second in AG markets even while running the department day-to-day. He ran Trump’s defense in the New York hush-money trial and the two federal cases brought by Jack Smith, and has been running DOJ since Bondi’s April 2 firing while publicly signaling willingness to serve as permanent AG. His paper trail cuts harder on confirmation than Zeldin’s: Sen. Thom Tillis has publicly said he would not back an AG nominee who has excused January 6, and Blanche’s interview of Ghislaine Maxwell last year is a standing liability.

The delay trade climbs anyway because neither confirmation fight has to happen. Under 28 USC Section 508, the deputy AG can serve as acting AG indefinitely, and Majority Leader John Thune could decline to schedule a confirmation vote even if Trump submits a nominee. Trump doesn’t need to name anyone. Blanche is already running DOJ, and the only thing a formal nomination adds is a confirmation vote.

What impacts the line

A few new developments can reshape who the top contenders are on Kalshi and Polymarket quickly:

• If Trump posts on Truth Social naming a candidate, the market moves immediately — most cabinet picks in the second term have resolved or near-resolved within hours of an explicit post.
• If a specific White House meeting gets reported, the contract moves harder than it does on anonymous-source speculation, since a named candidate visiting the West Wing cuts out the hedging traders apply to everything else.
• If two or more Senate Republicans publicly flag concern about a nominee, the trade pivots toward the runner-up fast.
• If the acting AG’s tenure extends past 30 days, the implied probability rises on either a permanent conversion or a delay past the deadline contract.
• If a top name catches a deposition, indictment, or regulatory filing, the leader’s margin compresses or expands inside a single session.

If you are trading on who will be the next AG, you’ll want to follow Trump’s Truth Social feed. It’s the fastest signal — Trump routinely announces cabinet decisions there before the White House press office gets a statement out. After that, major outlets like CNN, CBS News, and Axios tend to land cabinet-pick reporting before the White House confirms.

On the Trump beat, follow Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan at the New York Times and Kaitlan Collins at CNN. Each has broken second-term cabinet news ahead of formal announcements, including the reporting that Bondi was being pushed out and Zeldin was the name Trump was considering.

Prediction markets with open AG contracts

Kalshi carries the deepest volume on the AG race. The primary “who will be Trump’s Attorney General” contract sits alongside announcement-timing binaries and individual candidate-by-deadline markets, so you can trade the field, the timing, or a specific nominee separately. New users can claim a $10 trade bonus with Kalshi promo code DEFI.

Polymarket offers the widest breadth of Trump-administration markets, with AG contracts sitting inside a broader cabinet-churn suite that includes “who leaves next” and deadline binaries. New users can claim a $20 trade bonus with Polymarket invite code RATE.

How the markets work and resolve

Kalshi and Polymarket carry the primary AG contracts, however, the resolution rules differ. Polymarket settles on the formal nomination submitted to the Senate, while Kalshi is the named individual becoming Attorney General. Neither resolves on acting occupants, floated names, or Senate confirmation votes taken after the nomination lands.

Kalshi, Who will be Trump’s Attorney General?: Resolves to the first named individual to become Attorney General before January 20, 2029. Acting or interim roles do not trigger resolution. Source must be a credible major outlet — New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CBS, ABC, Politico, and equivalents.

Polymarket, Who will Trump announce as next Attorney General?: Resolves on a formal nomination submitted to the Senate. Consensus of credible reporting may substitute where official government confirmation is delayed.

Polymarket binary deadline contracts (e.g. announcement-by-June-30): Resolve Yes if the named event occurs before the contract’s cutoff date; otherwise No.

Trading is fairly easy. Assume Zeldin Yes shares trade on Polymarket at roughly $0.48. A $100 position buys about 208 shares. If Trump formally nominates Zeldin, the shares resolve at $1 each and you are paid $208. If Trump nominates someone else, the shares resolve at $0 and you lose. If Trump names no one by the June 30 deadline, Zeldin shares still resolve at $0, you lose. Kalshi is the same, except you have until 2029 for someone to be named.

Common misconceptions

• The markets just echo cable news: Kalshi and Polymarket contracts priced Bondi’s departure at roughly 78% before the firing broke publicly. The markets incorporate reporting, but they also incorporate position sizing from traders who are watching DC in real time. They lead the news more often than they trail it.
• The acting AG will get the permanent job: Acting cabinet roles convert to permanent nominations less often than the exposure suggests. Traders typically price the acting occupant as the second-most-likely outcome, behind a named outside candidate — the current Bondi-to-Zeldin-vs-Blanche setup fits that pattern.
• A 47% frontrunner is a lock: A 47% probability implies closer to a coin flip with one name leading. The remaining 53% is distributed across alternatives, delay, and withdrawal scenarios, and those outcomes tend to cluster — meaning the frontrunner’s downside is larger than the single-alternative comparison suggests.
• The market resolves when the Senate confirms: Most AG markets resolve on the formal nomination submitted to the Senate, not on the confirmation vote. If you want to trade the confirmation outcome itself, you need a separate contract.
• No-announcement is a low-probability outcome: The no-announcement and delay outcomes have been live trades on every second-term cabinet vacancy market. Pricing them at zero has been wrong more often than right.

Key dates to watch

• April 2, 2026: Bondi dismissed; Blanche elevated to acting AG
• April 14, 2026: DOJ blocked Bondi’s scheduled House Oversight deposition on Epstein files; committee pursuing rescheduling or contempt
• Kalshi announcement-timing pivots: Before May 8, Before June 1
• Polymarket deadline contracts: June 30, 2026 for most binary AG contracts
• Kalshi top-line AG market window: Resolves on first confirmed AG before January 20, 2029

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