For months leading up to the Kamala Harris coup, former President Donald Trump was heavily favored by the betting markets to win the presidency in 2024 over Joe Biden. These numbers are not scientific predictors, of course, but merely indicators of people putting their money where their predictions are.
After Biden was politically knifed by the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, the race was tossed into a tailspin with lots of uncertainty. However, days after Kamala Harris took the reigns for Democrats without receiving a single primary vote, the race seemingly started to turn in her favor. Various media personalities lined up to praise her and eagerly distribute the campaign’s talking points disguised as news. She was fresh and new, apparently, and something other than Joe Biden for Democrats to get excited about.
Jumping ahead to this week when Democrats are holding their national convention in Chicago and the press coverage is gleeful, Kamala Harris is somehow dropping in the eyes of odds makers.
The shift was subtle but started right around Tuesday as the convention got underway:
It would seem counterintuitive that Harris would be losing ground as the DNC 2024 begins in Chicago. This is a week of trotting out the old guard like former President Obama and Clinton to rally the base and try to inspire confidence among moderates that Harris is a true leader. A tall order, to be sure.
With Harris set to formally accept the nomination tonight, there seems to be little room for error.
Compared to the opinion polls, the betting market seems to be a few days or even weeks ahead on public perception of the race. For example, the current RCP polling average shows Harris leading:
With the ultra-fast pace of media today, it would make sense that polling, which takes place over a series of days, sometimes weeks, would be sitting behind the immediacy of what’s happening up to the hour in politics. That’s not to discount the polling shift since there was obviously some movement toward Harris as a preference over Joe Biden, that part is clear as many Democrats became more excited about the race again.
However, how does that square with where the betting markets are headed? Only time will tell over the next few days to a week whether this is a new trend or merely a blip.
It seems to have started once Harris began rolling out her ill-designed economic policy proposals which are little more than government spending dressed up as something new. Her garbled sound bite recently about the “return on investment” when questioned about how she would pay for her proposals was alarming:
Kamala Harris finally just took a question from the press on how she plans on paying for her economic plan. After using the phrase “return on investment” 4 times in her brief reply, the question remained unanswered… pic.twitter.com/sTqp6actqU
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) August 18, 2024
A bright bulb, she is not. That doesn’t mean she’s politically stupid but it shows she’s demonstrably incapable of answering off the cuff and delving into weighty topics without detouring into meandering word salads of nothingness.
How are you going to pay for your plan? Just look at the children and the return on investment! Duh!
Nothing there strikes anyone as resembling a sound economic policy but, then again, that’s been the Biden-Harris administration since day one.
If Harris receives a minimal bounce from her convention and the race remains a virtual tie heading into September, that’s bad news for Democrats.
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