Election bettors had a visceral reaction to the CNN Presidential Debate on Thursday night, with the odds that President Biden will prevail in November taking a nosedive.
PredictIt.org, an election betting website, showed shares predicting that the Democratic incumbent will win re-election dropped 15 points in the aftermath of Biden’s widely panned debate performance.
The website allows users to buy shares in a candidate, priced between 1 and 99 cents, which corresponds to the market’s estimate of the probability that the candidate will win. Before the debate, the 81-year-old Biden traded at 48 cents per share. But in just one hour, after speaking with a raspy voice and giving rambling answers, his shares traded at 39 cents and bottomed out at 29 cents before rising to 30 cents as of Friday morning.
Former President Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, led Biden 53 cents to 48 cents prior to the debate, according to PredictIt. His shares shot up to 61 cents as he went back and forth with Biden and are now hovering at 58 cents, translating to a 58% chance of victory.
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Online sportsbook BetUS said the debate forced them to temporarily suspend their presidential election betting market while oddsmakers adjust odds.
“When the market re-opens later today we expect to see significant action come in which will keep the market in flux for some time until bettors and oddsmakers reach a new consensus. Given what we saw last night, I would expect to see Trump’s odds to tighten and Biden’s to widen, perhaps significantly. I also suspect we will see some significant changes in the odds for third party candidates, namely Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as those seen as alternate possibilities for the democratic ticket,” said Ted Williams, director of public relations for BetUS.
Election Betting Odds, another website that averages live odds from several betting markets, shows Trump with a 59.7% chance to win, up 4.1% in the last 24 hours.
The same average of odds shows Biden’s chances cratering to 21.2%, a nearly 15 point drop overnight.
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Democratic Party officials and liberal media personalities were in a full-on panic as they watched Biden struggle to make his points and many are now calling on the party to seek an alternative candidate with 52 days before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
One well-connected Democratic source told Fox News after the debate that the House and the Senate are Republican — for now, adding that “everyone is freaking out” and that Biden “needs to go.”
However, there is “no way they replace him unless he agrees,” the source said.
Former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, said during an appearance on MSNBC after the debate that Biden “failed” to show Americans he was “up to the job at his age.”
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“My job now is to be really honest. Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn’t do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight,” McCaskill said.
“Now, does that mean my phone blowing up with senators and campaign operatives and donors, big donors from all over the country, does that mean Joe Biden is not gonna be the candidate? I don’t know that. I think we’ll know a lot more in a few weeks.
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The uncertainty over Biden’s future with the party is reflected in betting markets, which showed alternatives like California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Vice President Kamala Harris surge in odds that they will win the Democratic nomination.
Election Betting Odds showed Biden’s chance to win the Democratic nomination plummet 24.2% in the last day, falling to 60%. Newsom’s chances increased 13.8% to 20.3% and Harris holds a 10.9% chance to be the nominee, up 8.2 percentage points in 24 hours.
Fox News Digital’s Kyle Morris contributed to this report.
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