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All eight odds-makers being tracked by RealClearPolitics (RCP) are predicting that Elizabeth Warren will be facing President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. As of Saturday, the RCP average puts Warren’s advantage at more than nine full percentage points over second-place Joe Biden.
This contrasts sharply with RCP’s polls at the national and state levels showing Biden with a strong, often double-digit, lead over Warren. Since June, only one national poll showed Warren so much as tying Biden. In every other poll Biden has led Warren, sometimes by as much as 18 percentage points.
On the state level, RCP shows Biden leading Warren across the board. In Iowa, Biden leads Warren by more than 10 points; in Bernie Sanders’ home state of New Hampshire Sanders squeaks out a small advantage against Biden and Warren, but on a head-to-head basis Biden leads Warren by four points; in Nevada Biden leads Warren by more than six points; in South Carolina Biden’s lead over Warren is nearly 25 points; in California Biden leads Kamala Harris (California is her home state) by two points, leaving Warren a distant third; in Texas Biden leads Warren by more than eight points; and in Massachusetts Biden is beating Warren by more than five points.
But contrary to those polls, the bets are on Warren. The betting sites include 32Red, BetVictor, Smarkets, Bovada, Unibet, Ladbrokes, Betfair and 888 Sports.
Perhaps the odds-makers see the writing on the wall. Indeed, Biden isn’t exactly helping his cause on the campaign trail. As The New American continues to report, Biden’s age, his policies, his back-pedaling and shape-shifting along with his lies and a failing memory are causing more than just material for late-night talk show hosts. Mouthpieces for the Left, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, have given front-page space to concerns that Biden may not be the man for the job after all. David Axelrod, the campaign advisor to Barack Obama in 2008, lit up his Twitter account: “It’s one thing to have a well-earned rep for goofy, harmless gags. It’s another if you serially distort your own record.”
Elizabeth Warren’s well-funded campaign, on the other hand, boasts an army of volunteers willing to burn shoe leather going door-to-door in the states she needs to win if she is to have any chance of beating Donald Trump next November. She is also starting to cut back-room deals with top Democrats, including Hillary Clinton. As NBC News noted, that conversation is “fraught” with danger, especially since Warren, in Hillary’s fading shadow, seeks to be the second woman to win the Democrat Party’s nomination and the first woman to be elected president:
Warren has made little effort to publicly highlight ties to Clinton, who is perceived by many on the left as too centrist and who was defeated in an election Clinton and her allies believe was heavily colored by President Donald Trump waging a misogynistic campaign. To the extent that Democratic primary voters fear a repeat scenario in 2020 — and to the extent that she’s competing with Sanders for the votes of progressives — there may be good reason for Warren to keep her distance from Clinton publicly.
Warren has already started conversations with the other Democrat candidates to gain their support, and their voters, in the event she is the chosen one to face Trump.
An unofficial poll taken by Politico in New Hampshire over the weekend revealed that grass-roots support for Warren is growing under Sanders’ very nose. It reported that of the 100 delegates attending the Democrat Party’s annual convention who were polled, half have already decided whom they will support, a third of them naming Elizabeth Warren.
Unless Joe Biden is able to right his ship, Warren is likely to be the party’s nominee, say the odds-makers. They are reporting that bettors are putting real money behind their bets, not just offering opinions about which candidate they think they might vote for 14 months from now.
It’s worthy to note that at least one betting site, Smarkets, reports that even if Warren is the Democrat Party’s choice, President Donald Trump will crush her in the general election. In a face-to-face battle, Trump presently holds a 44-to-16-point advantage among investors making their bets for November 2020.
Photo: AP Images
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American, writing primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
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