Swing State Odds
- Expert Claims Odds of Biden Overcoming Trump's Lead in the Four Swing States Was 'Less Than One in a Quadrillion' By Matt Margolis Dec 08, 2020 9:10 PM ET Share Tweet.
- What are the odds? North Carolina is considered a true swing state in the 2020 presidential election and Senate race because of its changing demographics and swing suburban voters outside.
At a rally in Georgia, President Donald Trump continued to make baseless claims about the 2020 election being “rigged,” drawing false comparisons at one point between President-elect Joe Biden’s performance in swing states and that of the last two Democratic presidential nominees:
Swing State Odds
- Trump said Biden beat Hillary Clinton “in the swing states, but she beat him everywhere else.” That’s false. Biden outperformed Clinton in every state — not just swing states.
- He also wrongly said “President Obama beat Biden all over the country, except in some of the swing states.” When comparing the candidates by percentage of total votes, Obama did better than Biden in most states, including four of the six swing states being contested by Trump. And Biden would still win the presidency without the two other contested states.
Swing State Election Odds Saturday, 12 p.m. Joe Biden is the President-Elect of the United States. Most media outlets called Pennsylvania for Biden on Saturday morning, giving him 273 electoral votes, enough to clinch the presidency.
The president visited Valdosta, Georgia, on Dec. 5 to campaign for the state’s two Republican senators who were forced into runoff elections against their Democratic challengers. But the president spent most of his 90-minute speech repeating false, misleading and unsupported claims about the election that he made just a few days earlier in an online video that he billed as perhaps “the most important speech I’ve ever made.”
At the rally, Trump insisted that he won Georgia (“You know we won Georgia, just so you understand”) and Wisconsin (“Well, actually I won Wisconsin”) — even though bothstates have certified Biden as the winner after recounts. Georgia counted its ballots three times.
Trump also repeated bogus claims about secret, illegal ballot “dumps” in bothstates that we have already debunked. This time, the president suggested that the ballot “dumps” explain what he described as a “very interesting” and “statistically impossible” anomaly in some swing states won by Biden. (His campaign has gone to court to challenge the results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona.)
After correctly noting that he won Florida, Ohio, South Carolina and Iowa, the president said this:
Trump, Dec. 5: And we won all over the place. And many of these swing states, you know, it’s a very interesting statistic. President Obama beat Biden all over the country, except in some of the swing states where Biden beat him badly. How does that work? And they say it’s statistically impossible. He beat crooked Hillary. Think of this. He beat crooked Hillary in the swing states, but she beat him everywhere else. Let me tell you, this election was rigged.
All of that is wrong.
“There is no such thing as a ‘statistical impossibility,’ for starters,” Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told us in an email.
Biden vs. Clinton
Using Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, we looked at the 2016 results and found that Biden outperformed Clinton in every state — not just swing states – both by the number and the percentage of votes. (The unofficial 2020 results were as of Dec. 8.)
Stewart said he prefers comparing candidates by percentage of votes, but without minor party candidates’ vote totals. By that measure, we found Clinton outperformed Biden in only six states (California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada and New York) and Washington, D.C. Only one of them — Nevada — is a swing state where Trump has been contesting the results. Clinton barely edged Biden there, garnering 51.29% of the Nevada vote, compared with Biden’s 51.22%.
In his own analysis of the 2020 and 2016 elections for us, Stewart said he found “what political scientists would call a ‘uniform swing’ for Biden nationwide,” with some minor variations.
“[T]he way elections work, it would be unlikely a winning candidate would do better (compared to 4 years before) in only the close states and not the uncompetitive states,” Stewart said.
Stewart provided this scatterplot that shows a “uniform swing” toward Biden.
“There are 51 circles, one for each state plus DC. The diagonal line is where every state would be if the vote share for Biden = the vote share for Clinton,” Stewart said, explaining his chart. “As you can see, the circles are sitting mostly right on top of the line, which is consistent with Biden being just a few points ahead of Clinton in almost all the states.”
By any measure, Trump’s wrong to say that Clinton beat Biden everywhere, except swing states.
Biden vs. Obama
We also reviewed the 2012 and 2008 election results and found that Barack Obama did have a higher percentage of the total vote than Biden in most states: 29 states in 2012 and 37 states (plus Washington, D.C.) in 2008. But Obama also did better than Biden in four of the six swing states now being contested by Trump — Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania — in 2008 and 2012. As a percentage of the vote, Biden did better than Obama only in Georgia and Arizona — two other states where Trump is contesting the results.
However, even without the electoral votes in Georgia (16) and Arizona (11), Biden would still have enough electoral votes to beat Trump. The unofficial election results show Biden with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. It takes 270 electoral votes to become president.
By vote totals, Biden did better than Obama in nearly all states — although that’s not surprising since there were also far more people who voted in 2020 (158,507,629) than had voted eight years ago in 2012 (129,237,642) and 12 years ago in 2008 (131,473,705):
- 2012: Biden received more votes than Obama did in 2012 in all but five states – Mississippi, Iowa, North Dakota, Ohio, West Virginia. Biden did better than Obama in all the swing states that Trump has been contesting: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia.
- 2008: Biden received more votes than Obama did in 2008 in all but 11 states. Obama did better in two swing states that Trump has been contesting: Michigan and Wisconsin.
So, no matter how one looks at the election results, Trump is also wrong to say that “President Obama beat Biden all over the country, except in some of the swing states.”
By total votes, Biden did better than Obama in most states, including swing states. By vote percentage, Obama did better than Biden in most states, including in most swing states.
Once again, the president is peddling false information that fails to support his baseless claim that the election was “rigged.”
Swing State Odds 2020
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Swing State Watchis an occasional series about false and misleading political messages in key states that will help decide the 2020 presidential election.
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- The 2020 Presidential Election is seven months away and sportsbooks have listed odds on which candidate will win in the Electoral College vote of the election.
- Swing states are notorious for having a big influence on the outcome of an election which is why candidates want to win over these states during their campaigns.
- Odds for winners of the Electoral College vote by state are listed on sports betting websites for wagers.
- Odds for which presidential candidate wins Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania will be pivotal.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – There are numerous odds up on sportsbooks for bets nationwide centering around the winner of the Electoral College vote for the 2020 Presidential Election.
Bettors have the opportunity to gamble on which candidate will win the Electoral vote with each state across the country. As with all presidential elections, the swing states carry the most weight because they tend to “swing” the results of an election in one way or another due to the number of delegates they are given.
Sports betting sites have listed the odds for each state for political enthusiasts to wager on Electoral College outcomes.
How The Electoral College Vote Works
What does the Electoral College vote mean? While the public votes in November for the candidate that they’d like to become the President of the United States, members of the Electoral College do not meet until December to vote. There are a total of 538 members of the College and a candidate needs a minimum of 270 votes to win an election.
There are 12 swing states and even if a nominee receives zero votes by the people in a maximum of 39 of the 50 states yet wins over 11 of the 12 states in the Electoral College vote, they’d win the presidency.
While the College typically votes how the majority of the constituents in their respective states have, they could always choose to go the other way with it if they wanted to.
Swing State Odds For The 2020 Presidential Election Electoral College Vote
Of all the swing states, there are three states that typically wind up playing major roles come election time. Florida is always a headliner for Presidential Elections.
In terms of their Electoral College odds, current President Donald Trump is favored to win Florida with odds of -180 while former Vice President Joe Biden has odds of +135. The Sunshine State accounts for a total of 29 of all Electoral College votes.
Another big swing state is Ohio where Trump is the favorite with odds of -200 to win and Biden is the underdog with odds of +150. Ohio has 18 votes given to them by the College. And a third swing state that counts heavily toward the overall election is Pennsylvania which carries 20 votes.
Bookmakers have listed the Electoral College winner of Pennsylvania as Joe Biden with odds of -200 and Trump with odds of +150.
In The End
“Swing states are the most critical states in the upcoming election. They’re essentially the tipping point of who’s going to win the electoral college, then win the presidency,” said Marisa Kanof, Swing Left National Field Director. “You look at the 50 states and you have the 15-20 that Democrats are going to win and the 15-20 that Republicans are going to win. These states in the middle…you win enough of them and you win the presidency.”
Legal sports betting sites have more than just swing states with odds on the election open for bets. However, whenever a Presidential Election is split, it’s swing states that usually decide which candidate will win a spot in the Oval Office for the next four years.
Electoral College votes matter and which way the states will swing is any one’s guess. However, bookmakers have crunched the numbers to make that guess a bit easier for bettors nationwide that are gambling on the election.
News tags: 2020 Presidential Election Donald Trump Electoral College Electoral College odds Florida Joe Biden Ohio Pennsylvania Swing States
– In his career, Hasan has worked both local and state government positions—including the Attorney General’s Office in Florida. On top of being familiar with the legislative process, he has also been researching and writing on the legality of sports betting across the US. Outside of work you’ll most likely find him producing or playing music, playing sports, or working on creative writing projects. You’ll also catch him at Doak Campbell Stadium cheering on the Noles.