The betting market often provides different insights from traditional polling. While most polls presently have Donald Trump with a slight lead over Joe Biden, election betting tells a different story.
After months floundering, Biden is now the best bet for the 2024 election, according to data from OddsChecker, a British company that compares odds in everything from esports to American politics. OddsChecker has Biden winning the election, marking the first time since September 2023 that he has surpassed Trump: according to the website, Biden now stands a 46 percent chance of winning, compared to Trump’s 43.8 percent. The website also has Michelle Obama currently beating RFK Jr. for third place.
“Despite Biden’s odds shortening, Trump has retained his status as the more popular bet on OddsChecker,” Leon Blackman, a PR executive at Oddschecker, told Cockburn. “In April alone, 54 percent of bets to win the election have backed Trump, compared to just 33 percent for Joe Biden.”
Aggregate betting averages recorded by RealClearPolitics also show that Biden pulled ahead of Trump last week for the first time since late September. The RCP aggregate of the most recent odds has Biden up by just over a single percentage point.
Trump’s declining betting odds coincide with the start of the Stormy Daniels “hush money” trial in Manhattan and the Arizona Supreme Court ruling that a near total abortion ban from 1864 is enforceable. Still, experts say that the betting market will remain tight.
“Our view is this election is very likely to be close at the presidential level. There are going to be parts of this year where each candidate probably looks like they’re ahead,” Ed Mills, the managing director at Raymond James, told MarketWatch in a recent interview. “It’s going to go back and forth throughout the course of the year.”
