Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are pushing their closing messages to voters on their last day of campaigning ahead of a US election that is on a “knife edge” in key swing states, according to Journalist and Author, Susie Boniface.
Better known as the Fleet Street Fox, she told Betfair’s Politics…Only Bettor podcast: “I think we’ve got a situation, particularly in Wisconsin, Nevada and North Carolina, where it’s within the margin of error and if it went very slightly in one way or the other, it’s going to change the electoral collage and change who takes the presidency.
“The length of time that we’ve been doing this podcast, it’s the third one we’ve done, and in the first one Harris was quite clearly ahead of the popular vote, but the electoral college is looking more iffy and Trump has managed to close a lot.
“Wisconsin and Michigan, they’ve both got 10 and then 15 electoral college votes between them, and then North Carolina, I think, has another 16. That’s easily enough for one or two of those, if they were to go one way or the other, and they’re all on a knife edge, and that’s the difficult thing.”
Prior to recording the episode, Sam Rosbottom, Betfair’s Political Markets Expert, had been on a tour of some of the key swing states in the race for the White House and he explained that he left the regions with “more questions than answers”.
✈️ US Election Tour: Swing State Specials@BetfairSam in Wisconsin, Michigan & Pennsylvania 🇺🇸
3 crucial states that will help decide if Trump or Harris is heading to the White House…
— Betfair Exchange (@BetfairExchange) November 3, 2024
“It’s incredibly tight and opinions are completely divided,” he said. “Friendship groups are completely divided and households are split on who will win between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
“We’ve been in Milwaukee, we’ve been in Detroit, and then we also spent a couple of days in Pittsburgh, the Iron City of Pennsylvania. You expect these traditional metropolitan areas to be completely one-sided, but it has been very interesting to hear a completely broad range of opinions with supporters backing Kamala Harris and also some supporters for Donald Trump as well.”
Betting on the election
The election has been dubbed as ‘the biggest event in the history of gambling’. Yesterday (3 November), Betfair reported that almost £150m has been bet so far on its exchange on the election. £89m has been matched on Trump and a further £42m has been matched on Harris.
🇺🇸 Almost £150m has been bet so far.
🔴 £89m has been matched on Trump
📈 Matched at a a high of 21
📉 Matched at a low of 1.41🔵 £42m has been matched on Harris
📈 Matched at a a high of 150
📉 Matched at a low of 1.82— Betfair Exchange (@BetfairExchange) November 3, 2024
At the time of writing, Trump is currently the favourite to return to the White House at 8/11 on the Betfair Exchange while Harris’ odds have shortened to 11/8. This represents a 58% chance of a Trump win according to the odds.
The operator is expecting the total wagered on the election to increase greatly as the election night progresses.
“It’s been incredibly popular and we are expecting to see plenty more of that,” explained Rosbottom.
“We know from four years ago that the most popular period on these betting markets is overnight. In the 12 hours when the vote closes to when we know a little bit more about where this could be going, four years ago we saw £130m staked in that time period.”
Who will win?
The odds pointing to a Trump victory should be music to the ears of his supporters as according to Betfair, the favourite in the Betfair odds has won 22 out of the last 24 elections.
Harry Cole, Political Editor at The Sun, was also on the podcast and he was equally confident of a win for the Republican candidate.
He said: “I’ve been bullish all day. I think we might just get a result that doesn’t come down to Pennsylvania dragging on for days. If [Trump] wins six out of seven of those swing states and some random ones like New Mexico, North Carolina or New Hampshire where he’s turning up in as well, something’s happening out there.”
Whatever happens at the ballot box, Boniface added that she believes voter’s decisions will come down to “gut instincts”.
“The general thing about how the election seems to be going in the US from over here is that it seems to be running pretty much on vibes and on the idea of which one you like and which one you don’t,” she explained.
“If you’re in America and you’re going to vote, a lot of it is about I like that guy or I like her or I don’t like him or her. That is partly to do with the fact that they’re kind of presenting themselves as some kind of change insurgent candidate and actually, Americans know exactly what both of them are like already.”
