Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden are in a closer race in states that decide final outcome, and betting odds have just turned in favour of the incumbent, just as they did on election night in 2016.
The betting site Betfair currently has its odds for Trump to beat Biden 51 percent to 49 percent.
Biden’s odds of a win among bettors on the Betfair Exchange have fallen to 40% from 61% earlier.
“Trump has overtaken Biden significantly and is now in pole position, suggesting it could be a very nervous night ahead for Biden,” Betfair spokesperson Sam Rosbottom said.
Leading U.K. bookmaker, Oddschecker, concurred, saying, “America went to sleep knowing Joe Biden was the sportsbooks’ favorite to win the 2020 U.S. Election, that hasn’t changed, but the gap between Donald Trump and Biden has been severely narrowed overnight.”
UK-based Smarkets Exchange is giving Trump 65% win-odds, up from 39% when polls opened. Biden’s win-odds have fallen to 35% from 61% earlier.
“This has mainly been driven by Trump seemingly holding the key swing state of Florida as a result of a very strong showing for him in the Miami-Dade county with a large Cuban population,” said Patrick Flynn, political analyst at Smarkets.
In 2016, bookmakers gave Trump less than a 20 percent chance of winning on the day before election day, according to OddsChecker, a site that aggregates odds from dozens of bookmakers. His 2016 odds were 20 percentage points lower than his odds leading into Election Day 2020.
