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Bettors Back Trump for Another Surprise Win
August 29, 2020
Trump has barely survived the shocking lead-up to voting day as the USA battles with the fallout from the global health crisis. Almost 200 000 people have died from the dread virus and 6 million and counting are currently infected, and the country is battling a severe economic decline.
But while his rival Joe Biden has more than 8 points on him in the polls, bettors seem to think he’ll stay right where he is.
A Split Between the Odds and Polls
The odds are saying one thing, the polls another as voting day looms. Trump is trailing in both, but this fact doesn’t seem to matter to political bettors. The former reality TV star currently enjoys over 80% of all wagers placed on a popular 2020 US Election market and Biden’s got less than 10%. Other candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Mike Pence, account for 9%.
One possible explanation for this is that the odds on Trump have been hovering around 6/4 and 5/4 for some time now. Another is that bettors who were backing Biden to win at first are covering some of their risk by hedging their wagers as November gets closer.
And the numbers are all for Trump, but nobody seems to be willing to put big money down. Overall, the wagers on him remain small. Only 38% of the total bet share is on the incumbent, with the majority staked on people not even in the race.
Biden’s No. 1 in the Swing States
While there’s some time yet to reclaim the poll deficit Trump is currently undergoing, he’ll need to make a splash in the swing states that frequently determine which way the American elections go. Biden looks likely to take Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, but Trump is coming up on top in South Carolina and Texas.
But the Republicans will be concentrating on the swing states, Arizona, North Carolina, and Ohio as the battle ramps up a notch for electoral college seats in the next couple of months.
And Biden is not performing as well as expected in key battleground states when compared to Hilary Clinton at the same time in the last election.
The next important event for both Biden and Trump will be the Ohio Live TV debate on the 29th of September. Biden’s got a big advantage going on thanks to his being part of 11 Democratic Nomination debates over the last 12 months, but Trump will be targeting his policies here.
Lichtman Says Trump’s Out
As things twist and turn in the wake of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, there’s one man that has no doubt about who the next president will be. His name is Allan Lichtman, and he’s been correct in every US collection since Ronald Reagan’s win in 1984. This year he says that Biden’s going to triumph.
The American historian recently revealed his prediction on a morning news channel and was one of the only forecasters to name Trump as the 2016 winner. He also correctly anticipated the businessman’s impeachment at that time. Lichtman has acknowledged that he could be wrong, but if his history is anything to go by, bettors should sit up and take notice.