Trump’s chances of returning to power diminish

James Moore, The Independent

Donald Trump’s odds of winning the US election are sliding at the rate of a horse found lame in the run up to the Kentucky Derby.

The President’s troubled campaign, his misreading of America’s mood and dismal polling data suggest its only a matter of time before one of the leading bookies offers odds of 2-1, giving him an implied probability of victory of just 33 per cent.

According to Oddschecker, which looks across the market, his Democratic challenger Joe Biden’s price has shortened to 8/13 from 8/11 in just the last week, with his implied probability moving from 57.9 per cent to 61.9 per cent.

Until recently the odds have, arguably, been lagging the polls. Biden’s lead has barely shifted in a month, during which time it has been within spitting distance of double digits, per FiveThirtyEight’s tracker.

Such chunky leads are usually subject to erosion over time, but there’s been scant sign of it happening so far. A Dallas Morning News-UT Tyler poll last week even gave the Democrat a five point lead in Texas, a Republican firewall that Trump carried by 9 points last time.

Now they’ve been talking for years about Texas – a state which Trump simply has to win given the 38 votes it carries in the electoral college – turning Democrat blue. Demographically it’s becoming more diverse, with a rapidly-rising Hispanic population. But even though the hard Republican red has been softening, it remains to be seen whether Texas is quite as purple (that is, up for grabs) as the polling suggests.

Numbers like that nonetheless suggest Trump has a mountain to climb.

So far he has taken most of the bets: 54 per cent according to Oddschecker, compared to just 15.8 per cent for Biden. It’s worth noting that the market was open before Biden was locked in as the challenger, yet he’s barely secured more supporters than have “others”. Meanwhile, Paddy Power’s regular biweekly bet count last week showed Trump with 36 per cent of the bets by number and 84 per cent of the volume of money. Kanye West’s 34 per cent bet count indicates a lot of people staking small amounts of money at big prices in the wake of the publicity generated by the rapper’s quixotic entry into the race. Biden, by contrast, was friendless.

Things were different on the Betfair exchange, where punters set the odds and can play bookie by laying other people’s selections. Trump has 59 per cent of its market against Biden’s 31 per cent, with £48.5m matched. But Biden’s market was the more active in July, which is the first time that’s been the case. This suggests that the money is gearing up to move in favour of the Democrat. Wealthy punters have long had a yen for putting very big bets on “sure things” at odds on.

The reason why Trump has been so much more popular with the gambling community is because gambling is driven by opinion. Punters are motivated to put their money down when they have a strong one – and Trump inspires very strong opinions. His supporters are clearly banking on their man pulling a rabbit from his hat as he did just under four years ago. Biden, by contrast, is defined by his blandness. He’s a fairly anonymous candidate who has been running a fairly anonymous campaign. He seems to be banking on Trump losing the election for him.

And it might work. It is working at the moment. The polls and the odds are saying the same thing.