Betting Average Has Trump Ahead of Harris for First Time Since September

Former President Donald Trump’s election victory odds have overtaken Vice President Kamala Harris’ in RealClearPolitics’ presidential betting average for the first time in nearly a month.

According to RealClearPolitics’ aggregation of bookmakers’ odds, the Republican candidate was given a 49.4 percent chance of winning the White House, while his Democratic rival was behind, though only by a whisker, at 49.1 percent as of early Monday.

Harris overtook Trump in the RealClearPolitics betting average following last month’s first – and possibly only – presidential debate between the pair.

According to RealClearPolitics, Trump is ahead with the bookies Bovada and Polymarket, while Harris leads with Betfair, Betsson and Smarkets. The pair were tied with Bwin and PointsBet.

Newsweek has contacted the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment via email outside of standard working hours.

The latest national polls paint a slightly different picture, however.

According to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, Harris was leading by 2.6 points nationally as of early Monday, at 48.5 percent versus Trump’s 45.9.

The most recent update to Nate Silver’s election poll averages on the Silver Bulletin blog also saw Harris slightly ahead at 49.3 percent, with Trump at 46.2 percent.

RealClearPolling’s aggregation of national polls also had Harris ahead at 49.1 percent with Trump at 46.9 percent.

Compared to standard election polls, which usually take place over multiple days, gambling odds are highly reactive to news events, and thus update more quickly.

The race remains on a knife’s edge in the vital swing states. The candidates are currently separated in the polls by only a couple of percentage points on average.

As of early Monday, Trump leads in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, while Harris leads in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada.

Polls measure the popular vote, which a presidential contender can win but still lose the election if they fail to secure 270 out of the 538 Electoral College votes, a number based on each state’s delegates in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Polls have also historically underestimated support for Trump, though pollsters say this now being better accounted for.

Cliff Young, the president of Ipsos polling, previously told Newsweek: “Many pollsters today are using past vote [history] to correct for the Trump undercount.”

Betting on politics is illegal in the U.S., and Newsweek does not encourage or condone it.

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