The odds of Kamala Harris winning the 2024 presidential election saw a slight but noticeable improvement after she named Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, according to some leading bookmakers.....CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
Harris wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “I am proud to announce that I’ve asked Tim Walz to be my running mate. As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. It’s great to have him on the team.”
On Tuesday evening, Harris and Walz held their first campaign rally together in Philadelphia where the governor said Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump “doesn’t know the first thing about service” and mocked his vice-presidential pick J.D. Vance over a viral online meme.
Immediately before Harris announced Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, her odds of winning the 2024 presidential election were 11/10 (47.6 percent) according to U.K.-based betting company Bet365. However, by 5 a.m. ET on Wednesday, after the announcement and the Philadelphia rally, her odds had improved to 1/1 (50 percent) with the bookmaker.
Similarly, PaddyPower was offering odds of 1/1 (50 percent) on Harris winning in November prior to her announcement but this was cut to 10/11 (52.4 percent) on Wednesday morning. Before Harris named Walz as her VP pick, Spreadex had odds of 21/20 (48.8 percent) on Harris achieving victory but this improved to 1/1 (50 percent) early on Wednesday.
Newsweekcontacted representatives of Vice President Kamala Harris, Governor Tim Walz and the Trump campaign for comment on Wednesday by email outside of regular office hours.
A nationwide poll of 1,513 registered voters conducted by Marist College for NPR and PBS between August 1 and 4 found that 71 percent of Americans either hadn’t heard of Walz or didn’t have an opinion about him. Of those who said they did have an opinion about the governor, 17 percent were positive versus 12 percent that were negative.
By comparison an analysis of recent polling published on Tuesday by election website FiveThirtyEight concluded Trump had a net unfavorability rating of 8.3. This consisted of 43.4 percent who had a favorable view of the former president against 51.8 percent who had an unfavorable perception.
Speaking to Newsweek, Thomas Gift, who heads the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, U.K., said picking Walz as her running mate would likely make it harder for Harris to win Pennsylvania as opposed to if she had picked Josh Shapiro, the governor of the key swing state, who was widely tipped as a VP candidate.
Gift said: “Pennsylvania isn’t out of reach for Harris, but there’s no doubt it just became a lot more challenging to win. Governor Shapiro likely would have energized a large swath of Pennsylvanians, both in red and blue counties, and given Harris an edge in edge in securing its critical 19 electoral votes. If Harris fails to reach 270 electoral votes in November, and PA turns from blue to red, there will be lots of second-guessing her choice.”
Harris has outperformed Trump in more than a dozen national polls since she became her party’s presumptive presidential nominee after President Biden announced he was dropping out of the race on July 21.
However, due to the Electoral College system, Trump could get fewer popular votes than Harris and still win the election, as he did against Hillary Clinton in 2016. The Republican is still the slight favorite to secure the White House in November with most bookmakers...CONTINUE READING>>
