Analyzing The 2024 Presidential Race Dynamics
Donald Trump's odds of securing a second White House term are now better than they were on June 27 prior to his decisive debate against Joe Biden, according to betting website Polymarket. As of 4:20 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Polymarket gave Trump odds of 64.3 percent on victory in November, substantially ahead of Democratic rival Kamala Harris on 35.7 percent. The GOP candidate's chances of winning according to Polymarket are now higher than they were at 1 a.m. ET on June 27, just hours before the Biden debate in Georgia, when they stood at 60 percent against 34 percent for the incumbent president.
Biden struggled during the June 28 debate against Trump, at times appearing to lose his train of thought mid-sentence. The debate triggered a renewed focus on the age and mental acumen of the 81-year-old Biden, which led to intense pressure on the then presumptive Democratic candidate from within his own party. On July 21, Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and offered his endorsement to Harris, his vice president, who swiftly became her party's presumptive nominee.
Notably, Trump's odds have improved significantly over the course of this month, according to Polymarket, with Harris actually starting ahead on October 1 with victory odds of 50 percent against 49 percent for the Republican candidate. Polymarket offers real-time betting on a range of different issues and claims to be "the world's largest prediction market." Newsweek contacted the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris presidential election campaigns for comment on Tuesday via email outside of regular office hours.
As well as predicting Trump will win nationally, Polymarket has Trump as a favorite to win in the seven key swing states of Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In 2020, Biden won all of these states with the exception of North Carolina.
According to Polymarket, in November, Trump's odds of winning are 60 percent on Nevada, 72 percent in Arizona, 70 percent in Georgia, 68 percent in North Carolina, 61 percent in Pennsylvania, 59 percent in Michigan, and 57 percent in Wisconsin, as of 5:45 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
The latest analysis of recent polling by election website FiveThirtyEight, released on Monday, gave Harris a 1.8 point lead in the national vote with 48.2 percent of the vote versus Trump's 46.4 percent. This was down from a 2.4 point lead for the vice president on October 14, when Harris recorded 48.5 percent of the vote against 46.1 percent for the GOP nominee. Due to the Electoral College system, Trump could lose the popular vote in November but still win overall, as he did in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.
In its most recent analysis, based on opinion polling rather than betting, FiveThirtyEight gave Trump a 51 percent chance of victory next month against 49 percent for Harris. This model was released on Monday and also found there is a "less than 1-in-100 chance of no Electoral College winner."
Millions of voters have already cast their ballots in early voting, with preliminary polling showing Harris has a strong lead over Trump among those who have voted thus far. However, this is not necessarily indicative of a wider trend with Democratic voters tending to vote early more than Republicans, whilst Trump has previously argued mail-in ballots lead to electoral fraud though this claim has been dismissed by the relevant authorities.
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