Recent polling in Pennsylvania suggests voters are narrowly divided in choosing Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump . Betting markets disagree. If they're right, Pennsylvania and the presidential election might go Trump's way.
Since the vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz, offshore betting markets have trended toward Trump, according to Polymarket, a crypto trading platform. The primary driver: an influx of bets that raised the probability of Trump winning Pennsylvania.
The Trump campaign appeared to get an additional boost during the weekend after Trump returned to Butler, Pennsylvania , where a gunman tried to assassinate him in July. As of Tuesday at 12 p.m. ET, bettors on Polymarket gave Trump a 52.6% chance of winning the election, his best odds since early August. Presidential election betting can't be done legally in the U.S.
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How Trump's odds of winning have changed in the past two weeks
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Trump's odds of winning the presidency have risen with his odds of winning in Pennsylvania. In recent weeks, bettors on Polymarket gave Harris a narrow lead in Pennsylvania, a state with 19 electoral votes. Assuming she were to win all the other states where she's favored, Harris would surpass the 270 electoral votes with Pennsylvania.
Harris' and Trump's odds of winning each state
With four weeks remaining before Nov. 5, Trump's odds of winning the 2024 race are also much better than his two other runs in 2016 and 2020. He had just a 17% probability of defeating Hillary Clinton as voters went to the polls in 2016, according to Betfair Exchange, the biggest U.K. peer-to-peer betting platform.
How well do potential voters know Harris?
Potential voters and betting markets knew much less about Trump than they did about Clinton in 2016. The shoe might be on the other foot this time around, according to Harry Crane , a Rutgers University statistics professor, who studies election outcomes on the predictions of betting markets.
Harris "is a relatively unknown candidate," Crane said in a phone interview Thursday. "She's been the vice president, but she's not doing any media interviews. She's not exposed." A "60 Minutes" interview with Harris that aired Monday night was the first in a series the campaign has since announced.
"She's kind of the polar opposite of Trump," Crane said, "where Trump is 100% exposed. It's almost unthinkable to think something could come out that would surprise anybody about Trump. Does this help Harris, or does this hurt Harris?"
Which states polling says are still toss-ups
Real Clear Politics daily tracks and aggregates polling throughout the country. Its analysis suggests more than 100 electoral votes in nine states remain toss-ups.
Bettors push Trump's probability of winning higher than in previous two elections
Though betting on Trump and Harris has diverged significantly in recent days, it is far from where Trump stood on the opening day of the Republican National Convention. On July 16, his odds of winning were more the 70% on Polymarket and Betfair Exchange.
Betting odds didn't predict Trump's 2016 victory
Though the betting odds have turned in Trump's favor, the 6 percentage point gap Tuesday at 12 p.m. ET between Harris and Trump remains the narrowest among the previous three, according to Betfair Exchange. On Oct. 8, 2020, bettors gave Biden a 66% chance of winning.
Betfair odds had Hillary Clinton with an 81% likelihood of winning on Election Day in 2016. The betting favorite has lost only twice since 1866, according to the Conversation, a nonprofit news organization. The only other time bettors failed to predict the winner: 1948, when Democrat Harry Truman beat 8-to-1 odds to defeat Republican Thomas Dewey.
Contributing: James Powel
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What are Trump's odds of winning the election? Here's why they just got better
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