Harris' late surge in betting odds fueled by outlier poll, but Trump still 'slightly favored'
Vice President Kamala Harris has had a late push to close some of the gap between her and former President Trump in the election betting odds.
Trump enjoys a 13.1 point lead in the presidential betting odds as of Monday morning, leading Harris 56% to 42.9% in the Real Clear Politics betting average. The number, however, represents a late shift in the odds toward Harris, who trailed Trump by 28.9 percentage points just six days ago.
"Some of the polls have been getting a little bit closer, so I think the betters are seeing some slight momentum toward Harris," Maxim Lott, who runs ElectionBettingOdds.com, told Fox News Digital on Monday.
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Lott’s website shows a similar trend to the Real Clear Politics average, with Trump having a 56.4% chance to win the election as of Monday morning, while Harris has a 43.1% chance. But like the numbers on Real Clear Politics, Trump’s lead has fallen by 5.3 percentage points over the last week.
Lott, who previously served as a program executive producer for the FOX Business Network, said many inputs can lead to changing betting behavior, pointing to a recent surprising Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll out of Iowa that showed Harris with a one-point lead over Trump in a state few believed to be in play for Democrats.
While one poll could be dismissed as an outlier, Lott noted that betters have seemingly reacted to the news, with Trump’s odds of winning the state dropping from over 94% a week ago to 82.1% as of Monday morning.
"I think there’s this kind of narrative behind that poll that abortion is actually going to be the driver this election, just like it was in 2022, and that women are going to come out in droves and elect Harris," Lott said. "I think bettors are at least assigning some probability to that being true."
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What Lott doesn’t believe is behind the Harris surge is a small amount of very large bets in her direction, pointing to betting platforms such as PredictIt, which limit the amount of bettors and bet sizes on certain outcomes, that have tracked in a similar direction as every other platform tracked on his website.
Nevertheless, Lott cautioned against putting too much stock into late momentum when it comes to evaluating the betting odds.
"Momentum doesn’t matter at all… for this kind of thing," Lott said. "With a market, the current price is the best predictor of the future price… if Harris was supposed to be in the lead, you could make a lot of money by putting her in the lead by putting your money on her now."
Add it all up, Lott envisions a close election that will likely come down to turnout.
"I would expect on Election Day, Trump to still be slightly favored," Lott said.