The pundits say Harris 'won' the debate. But would they bet on it?

By Brett Arends

Talk is cheap, but the bookies are way more skeptical

Shortly before this week's presidential debate, I walked into a branch of one of the big international bookmakers in London to check the odds on the election.

They had Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neck and neck: You could bet on either one at odds of 10/11. That means you'd win a $10 profit, if the candidate you picked won the election in November, for each $11 you bet.

Where are they today, two days after Donald Trump's allegedly "disastrous" and "terrible" debate performance?

Er...Kamala Harris is now being offered at evens, or 1/1, while Trump has slipped slightly to 5-to-6.

Or, to put it another way, the bookies have upgraded Harris' chances of winning the election all the way from 48% to 50%, and slashed Trump's all the way from 48% to just...er...45%.

Booyah! Some landslide.

(The percentages don't add up to 100% because of the bookies' margins)

In person-to-person betting stateside the odds have moved a little more than that, but directionally the picture is the same. Harris' chances of winning are up a few percent, to around 50% - 55%, and Trump's down a few percent, from 49% to 47%. That's it.

(My colleague Victor Reklaitis wrote about the betting shortly after the debate).

Oh, and I'm not talking about a movement in the polls of a few points. In a tight race a three-point swing from one candidate to another would be important. I'm just talking about a movement in the betting odds that they'll win. It's a totally different ballgame.

How can this be? I've been following all the smart people since the debate and they all say Trump had a terrible, terrible debate, one of the worst on record, and Harris either crushed it or at least beat expectations. It was so bad that the pro-Trump media has spent the week attacking the moderators. This is like sports fans blaming the refs. With the exception of the first presidential debate, which helped push President President Biden out of the race, I can't remember many past presidential debates where the commentarial has been so emphatically unanimous.

Yet as far as the professional bookies and the private gamblers are concerned, this Kamala Harris "blowout" has hardly moved the dial at all.

So who's right? The bookies, who do this for a living and have their money on the line, and gamblers? Or the commentary class?

To ask the question is pretty much to answer it. Talk is cheap, and opinion is free. All those people claiming Harris won convincingly should be invited to put their money where their mouth is.

(A guy online commented that Trump had done so badly he would probably drop out of the race. I suggested he place a bet on JD Vance, who's being offered at 100 to 1 to win the election. No reply.)

But the only meaningful answer to the question, "who won the debate?" is to reply: We will not know for at least a week. We cannot possibly know that until we've had several scientific polls taken in the swing states, and based purely on polling people at least one day after the debate.

A presidential debate is won or lost only on how it affects the trajectory of the election campaign. This is not Olympic ice skating. You do not get points for style or artistic impression.

Broadway impresarios used to ask of a new production, "But will it play in Poughkeepsie?" (Later this was changed to "Will it change in Peoria?"). They knew that something that went down a storm with a metropolitan crowd in Manhattan might bomb outside.

Today, with an eye on the swing state of Wisconsin, maybe we should ask: "Will it play in Platteville?"

How will Harris' performance play in Platteville? How will Trump's? I have no idea. Somebody needs to ask them.

Eight years ago Donald Trump's performance in the second debate with Hillary Clinton was widely disparaged by the pundits, but actually it was a massive victory: By threatening to throw Clinton in jail if he won the election, he dramatically changed the narrative from the Access Hollywood tape scandal, which erupted just two days earlier.

No, the bookies are not always right. Nor are individual gamblers. They may be underestimating Harris' gains this time around. But they are very rarely obviously and seriously wrong. If they were, they'd go out of business.

Meanwhile, the polarization of the media has gone even further than the polarization of the country, and that means many political pundits have just become the airwave equivalent of those Hollywood "concierge doctors." They'll give you whatever you want, whether it's good for you or not.

Next time someone emphatically tells you what's happening in a tight race, or who's going to win, take a look at the betting odds. Even better, suggest they bet on it.

-Brett Arends

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09-12-24 1409ET

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