Donald Trump’s odds saw a slight improvement from three weeks ago improving from 1.97X to 1.92X. They are still off their highs of 1.59X last achieved on 2/22, a week before Biden’s South Carolina win. Trump’s approval rating is basically at all time highs, so the odds near all time highs should not be a surprise.
Joe Biden saw a small drop from 2.12X to 2.25X, but that is still his second highest odds. The implied odds between the two are 54% Trump, 46% Biden.
Bernie Sanders’ odds saw a small drop from 32.0X to 33.6X. There are his lowest odds since the end of 2016.
The most interesting change in the odds came with a “Draft Cuomo 2020” movment. Andrew Cuomo was last in our odds on 2/8 at 519.2X. With COVID-19 his profile has increased and his odds have now jumped to 29.0X (inexplicably ahead of Sanders). This is the highest he has been since April 2017!
Below are the odds. We will go back to looking at the state polls again next week.
Joe Biden had more large wins on Super Tuesday II including winning Michigan. As a result, his odds have basically doubled for the second straight week. They have now gone from 8.70X two weeks ago, to 3.99X last week, to 2.12X this week. These are the highest odds for any Democrat this cycle.
Donald Trump’s odds saw a sizable drop, possibly because polls show Biden is a more formidable opponent head to head than Sanders (more on that in a bit), or possibly of the impact of the Corona Virus. After being in a tight range of 1.59X to 1.60X the last five weeks, Trump’s odds dropped to 1.97X, his lowest in three months. The combined odds for Biden and Sanders improved to 1.98X, just shy of Trump. That’s an implied 50.2%/49.8% probability edge to Trump.
Sanders’ disappointing finish on Tuesday dropped his odds from 12.0X to 32.0X. It’s hard to believe just two weeks ago, he was at 3.99X. This is the lowest he has been in over 3 years (Jan 2017).
Mike Pence’s odds more than doubled. Perhaps that’s a hedge on Trump getting sick. Pence’s visibility has also increased tremendously driven by Trump appointing him as the head of the Corona Virus task force. The odds are now at 29.3X, his highest in over a year. These odds actually put him ahead of Bernie Sanders.
There were other jumps in people not running:
Hillary Clinton jumped from 71.1X to 39.6X, her highest in 10 weeks
Nikki Haley jumped from 242.7X to 116.1X, her highest in 8 weeks
Michelle Obama jumped from 178.5X to 116.5X, her highest in 10 weeks.
Here are the full odds:
For the second week we are turning the focus to the state by state polls of Trump vs. Biden and Trump vs. Sanders. These are starting to show a big differentiation, perhaps due to Biden’s momentum. In the last two weeks, polls have been done in 11 states. In 9 of those 11, Biden does better than Sanders against Trump. The other two are even. The biggest differences:
AZ, where two polls show Biden up by 8 pts and 6 pts, while they show Sanders ahead of Trump by 5 in one and Trump ahead by 7 in another.
Florida poll shows Trump up over Biden by 2 (statistical tie), but up over Sanders by 6
Pennsylvania Biden by 6 over Trump but Sanders only up by 2 (statistical tie)
The impact of those three states leads to a big victory for Biden over Trump (as we stand today) but basically a tossup for Sanders.
Here are the state by state projection based on the polls and the history of those states:
There was a tremendous amount of shakeout in odds this past week on the Democratic side, to reflect the big changes in the field. It all started with an endorsement of Joe Biden prior to the South Carolina primary by Jim Clyburn. Although Biden would have likely won with or without the endorsement, it helped Biden to a route as he more than doubled Bernie Sanders’ vote total. That was followed up shortly with Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Tom Steyer all dropping out and endorsing Biden prior to Super Tuesday. This gave Biden the momentum for Super Tuesday, where he beat Bernie Sanders (who prior to the weekend was believed to be the winner for that important day). This also ended the short lived but expensive campaign of Michael Bloomberg who endorsed Biden as well, and ended the campaign of Elizabeth Warren, who has yet to endorse anyone.
Where does this leave us as far as the odds with really three candidates remaining?
Despite the improved likelihood of a centrist (Biden) winning the Democratic ticket, and the bad headlines on the Coronavirus/stock market, Trump’s odds remained very resilient. They were flat to last week’s 1.60X and just shy of the all time high of 1.59X. They have been either 1.59X or 1.60X the last 5 weeks. The combined odds for Biden and Sanders are currently 2.93, which puts Trump’s odds against those two at 65.2%
Joe Biden’s results obviously saw a tremendous jump from 8.70X to 3.99X, his all tine high.
3.99X is exactly where Sanders was last week. He dropped this week from 3.99X to 12.0X. His lowest since mid November.
Hillary Clinton and Mike Pence remained fairly strong as the alternatives at 71.1X and 74.6X, and Michael Bloomberg, with the ability to come in from sidelines with his billions should Biden falter is at 166.0X.
With the Democrats down to two main candidates, we will transition this blog to look at those two candidates against Trump on a state by state basis. Below is the current summary of the more important states (either swing or high number of electoral), and recent polls of the two candidates vs. Trump. This will get refined as more polls start coming in. Currently, this crude method has Democrats winning by 50 electoral votes regardless of candidate (the opposite of what the betting market suggests). Although the result is the same whether it’s Biden or Sanders, it’s important to point out that with the 6 states with recent polls, Biden does better against Trump in 4 of them than Sanders does. They both do equally against Trump in the other 2.
Here are the current odds of the remaining field as well as the state by state early look:
