Donald Trump's chances of winning Pennsylvania are rising: oddsmakers

Former President Donald Trump's chances of winning the 2024 presidential election have improved in recent hours, thanks to changes in Pennsylvania and Arizona, according to a well-known bookmaker.

As of 4:20 a.m. ET on Tuesday, U.K.-based betting company Betfair gave the Republican candidate a 4/6 (60 percent) chance of winning, compared to 6/4 (40 percent) for his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. However, as of 12:50 p.m. ET, Trump's odds had been lowered to 5/8 (61.5 percent), while Harris' odds had been increased to 8/5 (38.5 percent).

Across the United States, voters are flocking to the polls as recent polls suggest it will be a razor-thin contest. An analysis of recent polls released Tuesday morning by election website 538 showed Harris leading Trump by 1.2 points in the national vote, with 48 percent of the vote to 46.8 percent. However, because of the Electoral College system, Trump could lose the popular vote but still win the election, as he did against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The change in overall Betfair odds since this morning was due to an improvement in Trump odds in the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Arizona.

In Pennsylvania, which has 19 votes in the Electoral College, Trump's odds of winning rose to 58 percent from 52 percent on Tuesday morning, according to Betfair. During the same period, Trump's chances of winning Arizona, which comes with 11 Electoral College votes, increased from 73 percent to 78 percent.

Betfair spokesman Sam Rosbottom said Newsweek: “Punters' (bettors') confidence in the former president continues to grow as Republicans appear to be moving closer to victory in two key swing states – Arizona and Pennsylvania.

“Republicans now have a 2/7 (78 percent chance) of winning in Arizona and 5/7 (58 percent chance) of winning in Pennsylvania,” Rosbottom said. “Trump's chances have diminished in both states in the last few hours. He is ahead in five of the seven swing states.”

Newsweek contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns via email Tuesday for comment.

An artificial intelligence-based model that Aaru developed for media company Semafor predicts Harris will win five of seven contested states.

The model, based on creating “a thousand or more” AI bots for each state representing voters, concluded that the vice president is most likely to win in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. However, Trump was ahead in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. If all other states repeated their 2020 election results, that would be enough to give Harris the victory.

The final election forecast released Tuesday by 538 showed Harris has a 50 percent chance of winning the election, just ahead of Trump at 49 percent. The data was based on 1,000 election simulations and was last updated at 6 a.m. ET.

However, a Decision Desk HQ/The Hill forecast released Tuesday showed that Trump had a 54 percent chance of winning, while Harris had a 46 percent chance. The median forecast had Republicans winning with 276 Electoral College votes (270 needed to win), ahead of Harris with 262 votes.

Speaking to reporters in Palm Beach, Florida, while casting his vote, Trump insisted he would concede if he lost a “fair” election.

“If I lost an election, if it were a fair election, I would be the first to acknowledge that,” he said. “So far, I think it’s been fair.”

Trump continues to insist that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him through fraud, although that claim has been repeatedly rejected in court and by independent election experts.