Joe Biden
Joe Bidenצילום: Politico

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden continues to lead Donald Trump in 2020 US Elections markets, but since going to press with his chosen vice presidential pick, California Senator Kamala Harris, there’s been a perceptible modification of the political betting odds. Indeed, it’s fair to say, it may have put a damper – at least for the time being – on Biden’s momentum in the presidential race.

Biden formally announced Kamala Harris as his running mate on Tuesday afternoon, prompting a swift and definitive reaction across political betting markets against Biden. Downgrading his odds against Trump, drawing the pair closer in the betting.

Trump, not unlike the most recent occupants of the White House – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – to have accomplished re-election, is keen to join the illustrious list of two-term presidents that dates back to the Second World War and includes FDR, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, amongst several others. His prospects did look to be auspicious towards that end at the turn of the New Year.

When political markets first opened betting on the 2020 US Elections odds, Trump, the ‘Make America Great Again’ president, inevitably emerged as the favorite to clinch a second term – a market estimation largely underscored by the strength of incumbency as well the strength of the economy at the time.

At the start of this election year, the US economy was booming, unemployment was at a half-century low and financial markets were thriving. The health of the economy was widely held by the punditocracy as the White House administration’s Trump card, underscoring Trump’s pledge to ‘Make America Great Again’.

Trump even weathered impeachment attempts without experiencing the slightest dent in his fortuitous political prospects to seize a second term in the Oval Office.

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March – a period during which a barrage of criticism was levied on the Trump administration for failing to react swiftly and effectively to what was by then widely held as an imminent public health crisis waiting to unfold – the Donald, once again, remained front and center in the betting. Even though then opinion polls were increasingly pointing towards a growing level of frustration at the White House’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic.

And yet: the watershed moment in the presidential race between Trump and Biden inevitably came. The moment when the axis tipped and the tide shifted in favor of the Democratic nominee. How couldn’t have possibly been anticipated by anyone bearing in mind it traces back to Memorial Day; the brutal killing of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody that proved to be the catalyst to spark a wave of national civil unrest over racial injustice, police brutality and socio-economic inequality against black Americans.

In the wake of widespread Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations calling for change across America – to which Biden promptly aligned his campaign publicly – Trump’s reaction to the civil unrest was distinctly polarizing. For which he consequently paid with nosediving polls and diminishing odds in the presidential race. Ultimately, falling behind his Democratic rival and where he currently remains – if ever so slightly.

Blindsided by a global pandemic, devastated by the ensuing economic crises and then having to contend with an emerging existential crisis exacerbated by the pandemic-mandated edits. Well, it’s enough to challenge any government never mind the Trump administration. This wasn’t a uniquely American issue but an extraordinary, unprecedented worldwide phenomenon that still has no clear end in sight.

From the tumultuous week late in May, what is sure to go down as a key turning point in contemporary American history, Biden emerged as the odds-on-favorite to win the general elections in November and he continued moving from strength to strength in the betting over the course of the summer months.

That is, until this week. Granted Biden remains in good position, ahead of Trump in both polls and political betting markets. But that may well be a moot point. After all, Trump defied the odds in 2016, beating the highly-fancied Hillary Clinton.

The business of politics isn’t straightforward. Political betting markets are fluid, sensitive to the subtlest development, change, stimulus, etc. Whether Trump’s recent gain over Biden on the political odds board – the odds being tipped closer today than in the last few months – is tied to the Veep Stakes, or whether they are mutually exclusive is neither here nor there. The fact remains the political landscape has shifted yet again, and now it’s looking more and more of a tossup in the betting.