2020 has been one of the craziest years that this country has experienced in a long time. And it just seems to get even more like that as time goes by. The handling of the entire COVID-19 pandemic is very telling of how things still stand, and with the election right around the corner, the pandemic response could prove to be one of the deciding factors in who takes office next.
The Vice Presidential debate was held just last week, so keep on reading for some prop bets regarding the election, and how some of the talking points at the debate affected the odds.
Donald Trump: +188
Donald Trump was not at all favored to become President in 2016 but wound up winning the election. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but Trump won the office by taking enough votes of the electoral college. Trump’s Inauguration Day was an historic day, and things have seemed off the rails ever since.
Now, Trump is running once again with Mike Pence, who didn’t exactly shine in the spotlight against Kamala Harris. The most telling sign of Pence’s failure to impress is that as a country, Americans spent more time after the debate talking about the fly that spent two minutes on Pence’s head than they did about any of the things he chose to say.
The odds of Trump winning the popular vote stand at +500, with one more debate still to be had. There is some controversy in this area, though, as he recently contracted COVID-19 and said he would not do a debate virtually. If that were to be the case, undecided voters would be left to vote based on what they saw in the first debate alone.
Joe Biden: -200
Joe Biden, who was Barack Obama’s V.P., is Democratic Party’s hope to knock off Trump in the election, which is now just three weeks away. Biden handled himself with seemingly incredible poise in the debate with Trump, which may have led to appearing “more Presidential” in the eyes of undecided voters.
It also helps that Biden is generally wearing a mask when in public and does not mock COVID-19 safety protocol. However, one available prop bet is the +200 odds of Biden losing to Trump despite potentially winning the popular vote. It would be a repeat of 2016.
Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate for Vice President, did not dominate Pence in the V.P. debate but made some fantastic points that may help sway undecided voters. What Harris also did was stand up for herself and would not let Pence silence her. In a time like 2020, to have someone who acts in an empowering way, like Harris, makes her very likable.
Other Prop Bets
There are several states where it’s generally known which party will win. The election could be significantly affected if some of them don’t hold up. In Alabama, the betting odds are that the state will vote Republican at -3300 and Democrat at +1400. In Arkansas, the odds are Republican -1600 and Democrat +800, and in Idaho, it’s Republican -4000 and Democrat +1600.
As it relates to possible outcomes, a unique prop bet is about Donald Trump’s presence in Russia following the election. The bet has +3300 odds that Trump is in Russia on February 1, 2021. If Trump were to lose, there is a chance he travels to Russia, perhaps to seek help in overturning the election results.
Final Thoughts:
The voters learned a lot about the candidates and their running mates in the first two debates. However, those were generally secondary points, outside of the main issues which voters generally already knew about.
The two major takeaways from the V.P. debate would be that Mike Pence has some improvements to make to sway undecided voters, and that Kamala Harris is hard to trip up with policy questions. The way she had an answer for all of Pence’s “attacks” was remarkable.
