Economy

As Shutdown Lingers, Trump Remains Odds on Favorite to Win in 2020

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: January 12, 2019 8:19 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 12:39 pm

The partial shutdown of the federal government and violent tug-of-war over the construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico has not hurt Donald’s Trump’s odds to win the next election. A major source that tracks the odds of who will be the next president gives Trump a commanding lead.

Predict It, one of the world’s largest gambling markets, puts Trump’s odds at 30%, which the service expresses by using cents on a dollar. By that measure, the wager on Trump is 30 cents. He is followed by Beto O’Rourke, who recently lost the run for a U.S. Senate seat from Texas. He is a newcomer at this stage among presidential candidates, but as his national name recognition has grown, he has stormed ahead of other Democrat contenders. His odds to become president in 2020 have risen to 18% and continue to increase.

In third place, Kamala Harris has odds of 14%. She has just joined the Senate from California. Before that, she was the state’s attorney general.

After the two newbies, former Vice President Joe Biden is at 13%. Many consider him a strong candidate because of his long service in government. He was vice president under Barack Obama for two terms, and he was in the Senate from 1973 to 2009. Biden is followed by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren at 7%. She already has announced her candidacy for 2020. At the same percentage is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who finished second in the 2016 Democratic primary candidate total to Hilary Clinton, the party nominee who lost to Trump.

Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey is next on the odds list at 5%, the same as New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar, Senator from Minnesota.

The Predict It odds are very close to those of another global gambling site, OddsChecker. And the odds sites have some level of confirmation from more traditional polls. A new Public Policy Polling survey of the odds that Trump would win a contest head to head with several Democratic candidates and potential candidates puts Trump ahead or better against, individually, O’Rourke, Biden, Sanders, Harris, Booker and Warren. The poll does not show the odds of him against the entire group as the two betting sites do.

At this point, despite some controversial decisions, oddsmakers show Trump is the man to beat.