Betting odds on political contests are interesting, not because bettors are smarter or better-informed than the rest of us, but because they put their money where their opinions are. Pretty much everything you read in a newspaper is spin, but bettors are saying what they really think. They represent, in my view, an honest assessment of the conventional wisdom at any given moment, and as such are interesting.
For the last twelve days, bettors have been flocking to Donald Trump. The current RCP betting average shows Trump ahead by 17 points, 58% to 41%
To be fair, 58% to 41%, in the last weeks of the presidential contest, doesn’t foretell a landslide. It’s not like it was 90/10 or 80/20. 58/41 is consistent with a very close election, which is what the polls generally suggest.
But the trend toward Trump is not irrelevant. As we have written repeatedly, Kamala Harris’s campaign is flailing. Rumor has it that her internal polls are bad and getting worse. That is consistent with the Harris campaign’s recent moves, which appear to be born of desperation. I think the fact that Harris’s campaign appears to be coming apart at the seams probably accounts, as much as anything, for the bettors’ hunches.
All of that said, every indication is that the election will be historically close. It continues to be, in my view, a toss-up.
