How Trump & Biden Odds Swung During 2020 Election Campaign

The 2020 US election will go down as one of the most controversial and highly-contested votes in American political history, as Donald Trump and Joe Biden go toe-to-toe for the White House.

The country split down party lines on issues concerning the coronavirus pandemic, mass unemployment, civil rights campaigns, corruption allegations and trade with China.

The Democrats opted to nominate Barack Obama’s former vice president as the man to take on Trump in 2020, with Hilary Clinton having come up short four years earlier despite winning the popular vote.

Trump was all on course to claim a second term before the start of the year, when his early handling of the Covid-19 outbreak saw his polling figures collapse, and the betting odds swiftly followed.

Yet Trump hasn’t been the underdog in this election campaign all the way through. In fact, there are some key points in the US election betting trends that point to times where the incumbent had a significant lead over his rival.

Here, Gambling.com looks at the three big moments that have swung the 2020 election.

Biden Nomination – March 2020

Joe Biden was lagging behind the likes of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders back in January 2020 when the Democrats were battling amongst each other to earn the presidential nomination. Biden eventually won out towards the end of February and crucially got the backing of politicians like Kamala Harris in March.

And that’s when the 77-year-old’s odds first plummeted. Biden was 7/1 to be president before Harris’ public backing, but after that – and following a flurry of state primary wins – his price tumbled to 9/5. During that time Trump’s odds rumbled along happily at 13/20 – the Republican was still a clear favourite.

Biden/Trump Cross Over – May 2020

Biden eventually overtook Trump in the US election betting markets in mid-May. The reason: Americans on all sides were critical of how Trump handled the first wave of coronavirus in the country. While many demanded a stricter lockdown and better support for those cast into unemployment, others argued for social distancing measures to be lifted in order to keep the economy moving at pace.

Trump’s big advantage heading into the 2020 election was to be the economy, and how he’d fattened it up over his four years in office. But Covid-19 crashed the US economy – as it did to many other western democracies – and left millions unemployed. At this stage, Biden swung into the favourite position at 7/10 to win the election, with Trump ballooning out to 5/4.

Trump Fights Back – September 2020

Since that crossover in May Biden has been favourite to win the election. His polling has remained consistently high and he headed into the November 3 vote around nine points clear of his rival. But there was a point in late summer when it looked as though Trump was set to burst back into the race.

As Trump’s polling figures worsened, his odds continued to widen. And eventually punters looked upon his 4/1 price as too good to refuse – and backed him in their thousands.

The result was bookmakers plunged their odds on Trump down to Evens, while Biden’s widened to the same price. It looked for a week as though the current president was back in control, but the polls barely budged.

Eventually the betting odds moved back to a ratio more befitting the polls, with Biden leading his rival. But even up to election day, while the polls gave Trump a 10% chance of winning the election, the odds pitched the incumbent at around 36%.

Throughout the election campaign bettors have never strayed too far from Trump.