Democrats Kick Off Convention With Harris Ahead of Trump in Polls and Betting Odds

The Democratic Party kicks off its convention this week in Chicago with its candidate for President as the favorite to win in November.

It’s a remarkable turnaround from when former President Donald Trump entered the Republican National Convention a month ago, with the betting odds in his favor and leading the polls by a comfortable margin.

Since then, however, President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection bid and Democrats coalesced behind Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s new nominee—a change that has injected new energy into a campaign that was previously slumping.

A series of recent polls have highlighted this swing in momentum. Surveys taken this month and published in the last week by the Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos and CBS News/YouGov show Harris with at least a 3% edge over Trump nationally, while a New York Times/Siena College poll published Saturday shows Harris gaining ground in crucial swing states. And an AP/NORC survey has seen Harris’ favorability climb to 48%, compared to Biden’s 38% before he dropped out of the race.

It’s a good position for Harris to be in at the start of the DNC, given that candidates have historically enjoyed a bump in popularity after their party convention.

But a lot can change between now and November, and Trump has proven the polls wrong before—defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016 against all expectations and outperforming pre-election surveys at the ballot box in 2020 even when he lost to Biden. 

Team Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio warned the campaign in a July memo about a “Harris honeymoon” that would see the Democratic ticket’s poll numbers surge, but he assured that it would come to an end eventually. Trump’s running mate Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio has similarly called Harris’ current polling edge a “sugar high,” saying in a Fox News interview on Sunday that internal Republican data indicates that the Democratic presidential candidate’s bump has already “leveled off.”

With less than three months to go till Election Day, here’s a snapshot of where Harris and Trump stand at the start of the DNC, according to several leading betting markets, national polling averages, and election forecast models.

Betting markets

Political prediction markets, which allow people to buy and sell shares in a predicted election outcome at prices that fluctuate, have grown in popularity over the years and have proven a somewhat reliable indicator of which way the winds are shifting.

As of Aug. 19, 6:00 a.m. ET, Polymarket, one of the largest such betting sites, puts the odds of a Harris victory at 51% (one can currently bet 51.1 cents to receive $1 should she win), while it puts the odds of a Trump victory at 47% (one can bet 47.1 cents to receive $1 should he win). PredictIt, another market, currently sells shares in a Harris victory for 56 cents, while shares in a Trump victory are 46 cents. 

Meanwhile, on traditional gambling sites, BetFair gives Trump’s odds of winning the election at 2.1 (47.6% probability), while Harris’ odds are at 1.99 (50.3%), and BetOnline gives Harris odds of -125 (55.6%) and Trump +100 (50%).

According to RealClearPolitics’ tracking of prediction markets and betting odds, Trump’s average expected probability of winning has dropped precipitously from its high of 66.2% on July 15 to 47.1% today.

Polling averages

Various news outlets also track polling averages, using unique methodologies to weight different surveys based on various factors like the reliability and perceived bias of polling firms, what candidates were included as options, and who was surveyed and on what dates.

The polling average curated by ABC’s 538, which was last updated on Aug. 18, shows Harris with a 2.6 point lead against Trump, 46.4% to 43.8%.

Silver Bulletin, the independent site of former 538 chief Nate Silver, puts Harris’ polling average at 47.1%, 2.5 points ahead of Trump’s 44.6%, as of its latest update on Aug. 18.

The tracker by the Economist, as of Aug. 19, shows Harris leading Trump by 2.3 percentage points with 48.0% to Trump’s 45.7%. 

Harris holds the highest lead she’s ever had over Trump (2 points) in the New York Times’ polling average, with 49% to Trump’s 47%, as of Aug. 18. That lead, however, narrows to just 1 point when the polling averages include independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Harris is up 1 point in the Washington Post’s polling average, as of its last update on Aug. 18.

RealClearPolitics’ polling average, as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Aug. 19, shows Harris at 48.1%, with Trump at 46.7% percent—a +1.4 point margin in a head-to-head race. RCP also notes that on this day in 2016, Clinton led the polling averages by 6.0 points, and in 2020 Biden led by 7.4.

Election forecasts

National polls, however, don’t necessarily reflect the reality of how the electoral college will go. That depends on state-by-state outcomes, and the 2024 race is expected to come down to seven key swing states. 

Several sites have created election forecast models to gauge how likely it is for either candidate to reach the 270 electoral college votes to win.

Forecasts by 538 and Decision Desk HQ/The Hill have been suspended since Biden withdrew from the race, but Silver Bulletin’s model on Aug. 18 suggests Harris has a 53.5% chance of winning in November, compared to Trump’s 45.9%, with Harris projected to win 279 electoral college votes to Trump’s 258. The Economist, as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Aug. 19, suggests the race is even closer, projecting a Harris victory with exactly 270 electoral college votes to Trump’s 268.

The American Presidency Project—which relies on factors like incumbency, the economy, and approval ratings—published a revised forecast on July 31 after Biden dropped out that predicts a Democratic victory with 275 electoral votes, assuming Biden’s approval rating rises to around 40 percent and the rate of jobs growth remains between 1 and 2 percent. But modeler John Woolley, political science professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, caveated, “there is a lot of uncertainty about those predictions—this is basically a prediction of a tie.”