Betting Giant reveals Trump, Biden in close race to win 2020 election

President Trump and Former Vice President Joe Biden are in a tight race to win the 2020 election, according to overseas betting giant Paddy Power. Paddy Power Head of PR Lee Price joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to discuss.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: President Trump has been discussing his policy proposals and what he sees playing out in response to the spreading of coronavirus cases across the US. He just said a little bit ago that he would love to see everything open back up by Easter. That would be mid-April, which would be a lot quicker than some of the estimates we're hearing from governors across the country.

Of course, Governor Andrew Cuomo saying that just in about two weeks to three weeks will be the peak for cases here in New York state, so differing viewpoints coming out of the White House and governor offices across the country.

I want to bring in a man who is watching this play out and how it's impacting the betting markets and odds to see who will win the election in 2020. That man is Lee Price, friend of the show, Paddy Power's head of PR, who's been tracking all of the odds for us from abroad.

And Lee, when we look at this, we had seen fluctuations in regards to President Trump's re-election chances. Right now, the presumptive nominee on the Democratic side, Joe Biden, had surpassed him for a little bit. We saw President Trump catch back up. What are you seeing now, as all of this plays out and people watch his response to the coronavirus pandemic?

LEE PRICE: Yeah, the drama's gone 180 for us in terms of the presidential election. Trump's backing from-- he's got a 52.4% shot, which is still low for him. And [INAUDIBLE] three months ago would have been 68%. We were really confident about Trump. He's now back to 52%. Biden's 50%. I know that's not 100. That's the way it maps. But you put Trump in poll position again, but still room for some wiggling, I think.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, what is interesting is just the way that we've seen that fluctuate because a lot of people were talking about maybe the war time response. Of course, you think back to then President George W. Bush and the response he had around 9/11. He had his approval rating soar by about 30%, as the country kind of rallied around what he was doing.

We haven't necessarily seen that with President Trump. Right now, still split, according to latest polling out of Monmouth University, when you look at about a 50-50% split in terms of people saying that he's done a good job versus a bad job.

Of course, digging deeper into that, you see Republicans overwhelmingly approving, about 90% versus 20% we're seeing on the Democrat side there. So that kind of speaks to the polarization right now in the country, even though this is an event that is supposed to kind of bring us all together, as we stay home and try and flatten the curve here.

But when you're looking at that play out, how is that maybe impacting things moving forward as this kind of melts away? I guess, it's hard to predict, but based on the swings that you've seen before, if Trump did have odds of above 60% to kind of win the election back then. What does that mean as we're seeing this all fluctuate in real-time?

LEE PRICE: Yeah, we think it's still early days, right? So that's why there's that uncertainty about Trump. Is he doing a good job? Is he doing a bad job? As soon as coronavirus starts to go away, there'll be this relief, this positivity, and Trump will get more and more credit. So if he does navigate America through this, he'll be more popular.

And we're seeing exactly the same thing here in the UK. Our prime minister, very divisive, but as things seem to progress, he gets more positive reactions and more backing. And we expect the same thing to happen to Trump. I expect in a week's time and in two weeks' time, I'll be saying you, hey, Trump's more of a favorite again.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, or depending on how things shake out on the Democratic side as well. I know we've been watching the odds for right now, Joe Biden has yet to name a VP, pick a running mate here. But the odds there have pretty much stayed where they've been since the open, as he's opened his lead over Senator Bernie Sanders. Not sure if you've seen anything change on the betting odds in terms of his VP nominee.

LEE PRICE: Yeah, we're kind of sitting on the fence. We're not sure, is the honest truth. We make Kamala Harris the favorite. She's got a 34.8% chance, and that is increasing. That was 5% the last week, so there is progress there. Amy Klobuchar is second favorite, and she's drifted slightly. She's 25%. And then Stacey Abrams has stayed the same since Biden emerged the favorite, around 20%.

So you got three really strong candidates there. We're leaning towards Harris, and the reason we are is because the stories we get over here in the UK and Ireland are handpicked. There's only select stories we hear, right, from you guys. And it's Kamala Harris talking about prisoners and what seems like a logical, sensible policy there, somewhat controversial. Or we hear about Klobuchar talking emotively about her husband and whatnot.

So we're hearing these stories, and they're really influencing people emotively. And that's-- you know, we're betting with our hearts over here because we're not US policy experts, sadly, but our favorite is Harris for now. But it's very much a free horse race, unlike the Democratic nominee.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, I know. I mean, when we talk about Amy Klobuchar's husband testing positive for coronavirus, she's talking about that actively on Twitter as well, just kind of speaking to how this is impacting everybody and what it might mean in the 2012 election as we move forward and how President Trump's handling of this will be watched closely as we move forward.

Interesting, though, out of that same Monmouth poll, when we look at the governor's approval rating as well, a very different story than Trump's 50-50 rating. 72% of the public saying that they agree with the job done by their current state governors, versus just 18% saying that they've done a bad job.

So not necessarily the same case. We're seeing Trump score versus governor scores. It'd be interesting to see if Joe Biden might give a little bit of a tour to go ahead and have some photo ops with some of those more favorable governors around the country. But we'll see if that happens. For now, Lee Price bringing us the latest on the betting market in regards to the election. Thank you very much. Stay safe out there, my friend.

LEE PRICE: Nice one.