Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday again emerged as the betting market’s favorite to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, as the pushback against President Joe Biden’s bid to stay on top of the party’s ticket continues to grow.
US Vice President Kamala Harris is now the bookmakers favorite to win the Democratic nomination.
Bookmakers on the prediction market platform Polymarket now believe there is a 64% chance of Biden dropping out of the race—up from about 33% at the start of Wednesday.
Bets in favor of Biden dropping out grew throughout Wednesday, as more Democratic lawmakers raised doubts about his electability and it spiked further after the White House disclosed he had tested positive for COVID-19.
Bets in favor of Harris becoming the Democratic nominee surged late on Wednesday night, with bookmakers on Polymarket predicting she now has a 45% chance, while President Joe Biden’s numbers nose-dived from 80% on Wednesday to 40% at the time of publishing.
PredictIt—which is also taking bets on the election—also witnesses bets swinging sharply in favor of Harris becoming the Democratic nominee on Thursday after she trailed Biden for most of last week.
Bookmakers on PredictIt are giving Biden odds of 37 cents per share (equating to a 37% chance) of winning the nomination, compared to Harris’ 51 cents per share.
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Despite Biden being the presumptive Democratic nominee, bettors are now convinced Harris has a better chance than him of winning the presidential election. On Polymarket, bookmakers say Harris has a 20% chance of winning compared to Biden’s 12%. Similarly, PredictIt bettors give the vice president a 26% chance of winning, compared to Biden’s 19%. Trump is comfortably ahead in both markets with more than 60%—but the gap will likely narrow once the bets on a Democratic win are not split between two candidates.