The vast majority of bets placed with a leading bookmaker on the 2024 presidential election winner over the past week backed Republican candidate Donald Trump to win, according to data provided to Newsweek.
Out of those who bet on the White House battle with Star Sports in the week to Thursday, 95 percent put money on Trump to win, while 5 percent bet on Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent. Overall, Star Sports is offering odds of 4/6 (60 percent) on Trump to win on November 5 against 11/8 (42.1 percent) for Harris.
Recent polling indicates that the 2024 presidential election is too close to call, with an analysis published on Thursday by the election website 538 giving Harris a 1.7-point lead, with 48.1 percent of the vote against Trump’s 46.4 percent. However, the Electoral College system means Harris could win the popular vote but still lose the election, as Hillary Clinton did in 2016. According to 538, Trump is the favorite to win the Electoral College, with a 51 percent chance of victory.
William Kedjanyi, a political betting analyst at Star Sports, told Newsweek: “It’s been another week of Donald Trump being favored in the market, pulling in 95 percent of all bets placed on the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
“Although there’s still time for some twists and turns before Election Day, the former president is comfortably in the driving seat, according to the betting at 4/6 to return to the White House on November 5, with Kamala Harris now the 11/8 outsider.”
When asked why the company thought so many people had bet on Trump over the past week, a Star Sports spokesperson told Newsweek: “We laid Biden along with other candidates early on, then Harris when she was announced, along with several decent bets on Trump; so we find ourselves in a fairly comfortable position.
“That enabled us to be top price Trump at a time when we felt he was too short, and while coinciding with polls being in his favor, both factors contributed to the lopsided recent interest in him.
“It’s been the busiest and most seesaw election we’ve covered, and we believe more change will come.”
Star Sports also has Trump as the favorite to win the crucial swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, and it’s offering odds of 15/8 (34.8 percent) on the Republican nominee performing a clean sweep of all seven states.
Kedjanyi added, “Trump has also notably been backed at 15/8 to sweep all seven of the swing states—which the Republicans are odds-on for in each of the individual markets—to seriously bolster his chances when the nation goes to polls.”
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Speaking to Newsweek, Republican National Committee spokesperson Anna Kelly said: “President Trump is a candidate for ALL Americans, which is why he is winning in every battleground—his message resonates with voters across the country.
“As CNN reported, for the first time since 1984, more Americans now identify as Republicans because Kamala Harris and the Democrat Party’s dangerously liberal policies have failed America. Harris broke our economy, border, and peace around the world, but President Trump will fix it.”
Newsweek contacted the Harris campaign for comment via email on Friday.
An election model based on “opinion polls, electoral history and demographic data” that 338Canada released on Tuesday had Harris as the favorite to win November’s election, with an average of 286 electoral votes against 252 for Trump. The model also had Harris as more likely to win the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, though Trump was the favorite in Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.
Data published on Wednesday showed that almost 20,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats had voted thus far in Nevada, with one prominent analyst describing this as “unheard of at this point in any other presidential cycle.”
According to a study by CNN political analyst Harry Enten, Trump’s lead among white women, a traditionally Republican voting group, is only 1 percentage point—which Enten said was the lowest lead with this demographic for any GOP candidate this century.
