THE RESISTANCE

Trump Foes Top Early List to Be Time’s ‘Person of the Year’

The president likely will not be pleased with who is favored to beat him for this year’s honor.

The favorites to be TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year” are a pair of top foes of President Donald Trump.

Prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi list New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani as the most likely to receive the honor, with a 36 percent chance on both platforms, followed by Pope Leo, with 19 percent and 22 percent chances, respectively.

Trump was the early favorite to be Time’s 2026 Person of the Year on Kalshi, but his odds have since shrunk significantly. He remains the third favorite at 13 percent, followed by Elon Musk at 12 percent and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at 8 percent.

Time typically announces its Person of the Year in early to mid-December. In 2024, it bestowed the honor on Trump—news that leaked a day early and sent the magazine into chaos. Last year, Time named the Architects of AI as its Person of the Year.

The magazine is known to go to extreme lengths to keep its “Person of the Year” choice under wraps each winter. Most staffers are kept in the dark until the big reveal, and those with the inside scoop discuss finalists in code, using colors or types of food to avoid accidental identity disclosures.

This year, gamblers on prediction markets are betting big that the magazine will reward those who have stood up to Trump amid a hugely unpopular war with Iran, his migrant crackdown, and his lack of ambition to bring down gas, grocery, and energy prices.

Mamdani, 34, has had a different dynamic with Trump than other top Democrats during MAGA 2.0. He has tried to butter up Trump in a pair of Oval Office visits and appeared to win the president’s favor—yet he has remained among his harshest critics, not backing away from his remarks that Trump is a fascist.

Trump, 80, has been equally harsh on the mayor. He has referred to Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, as a “communist lunatic,” a “total nutjob,” and “Mamdani the commie.”

Things have been equally nasty between Trump and Pope Leo at times.

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Leo, 70, often slams Trump’s treatment of migrants—saying last year that those who are against abortion but in favor of inhuman treatment of migrants are not “pro-life.”

More recently, Leo has repeatedly skewered Trump’s war with Iran, asserting that it is not justified and is bringing harm to innocent people.

The pontiff largely makes statements without calling out Trump by name. However, after the president threatened to destroy Iran’s “entire civilization” in April, he called out Trump directly.

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“Today, as we all know, there was this threat against the entire people of Iran,” he told reporters just outside of Rome. “And this is truly unacceptable.”

A firestorm of MAGA criticism followed, but Leo did not budge.

A week later, he said plainly, “I have no fear of the Trump administration, or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel.”

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Josh FialloBreaking News Reporter

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