What is absolutely certain the top political betting event of 2020 will be November’s US presidential election. Currently the incumbent. Mr Trump, is going through his impeachment trial at the US Senate while presidential hopefuls are going into the final phases of their campaign in the first state to vote on the Democratic nomination – Iowa with its caucuses on February 3rd.

Until now PB has yet do a post on the the final election result in November. As can be seen by the chart the mood on the gambling markets is that the Republicans are going to hold on. The chances are that Trump will come out of the impeachment process still as the incumbent president. Quite simply the mathematics of the makeup of these Senate are such that it is hard to see any other outcome then him being allowed to continue.

One interesting feature of the current hearings is the leading contenders were are also members of the US Senate find themselves completely involved with that and need to remain in Washington for the the hearings. This means that Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar are not able to be pressing the flesh in Iowa and in New Hampshire which are the first states to decide.

Whether this has an impact on the outcome we shall see but notably Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg or not affected by this.

I’m not sure that Betfair punters have got this market right. Sure Trump has the enthusiastic support of his base but he needs much more than that in order to ensure a second term . The evidence is that the independent voters are not as enamoured with Trump as his supporters might hope. A lot depends on who succeeds in winning the Democratic nomination.

I am far from convinced that the Democrats would be wise to choose a contender who is older than Trump who will be 74 when the election takes place . They need a newer younger face.

Mike Smithson