Donald Trump jumped 14% in Michigan, election odds show

Former President Donald Trump’s chances of defeating Vice President Kamala Harris have improved significantly over the past week in Michigan, according to a bookmaker.

Trump’s odds of winning Michigan’s presidential election were up by 14 percentage points with online betting platform Polymarket on Friday. Michigan is considered among at least seven battleground states that could decide the presidency on November 5.

While Polymarket still listed Harris as a 52 percent to 48 percent favorite in Michigan, the Democratic nominee saw her advantage over the Republican slip from a much wider lead of 67 percent to 34 percent only one week earlier on September 27.

Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump and Harris campaigns via email on Friday.

Polls suggest that Michigan is very likely to be a tight contest. While Harris has been a slight favorite for the past two months, Trump has been gaining ground in the state in some recent surveys.

A pair of Republican-leaning polls conducted late last month showed the former president with a 1 percent to 2 percent lead over Harris. An average of recent polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight shows the vice president leading Trump by 1.6 percent as of Friday.

Trump was defeated by President Joe Biden in Michigan by 2.8 points in 2020. He won the state by less than 11,000 votes over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, becoming the first Republican to win Michigan since former President George H.W. Bush in 1988.

The Wolverine State is among the three so-called “blue wall” swing states that are considered vital for Democratic hopes of winning in November. Polls and betting odds in the other two states, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are also tight.

Polymarket, which was funded in part by early Trump backer Peter Thiel, has also given the former president a significant odds boost in Pennsylvania over the past week. Trump is a 55 percent to 46 percent favorite in the Keystone State as of Friday, up from a nearly even contest one week earlier.

The FiveThirtyEight Pennsylvania polling average show Harris with a very small 0.6-point lead over Trump as of Friday.

In Wisconsin, Harris was a slight Polymarket betting favorite on Friday, although her 52 percent chance of winning was down from 56 percent the previous week. The Badger State polls showed the race neck-and-neck, with Harris holding another 0.6-point lead in the FiveThirtyEight average.

Polymarket is among several online betting platforms that offer odds on the presidential election. Nearly all of the bookmakers show Harris and Trump with roughly even chances of winning the overall election in November.

While betting on elections was technically illegal for many years in the U.S., a federal appeals court earlier this week sided with betting platform Kalshi in a lawsuit that effectively legalized the practice.