Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump in four swing states, the latest betting odds show.
According to Polymarket, an online prediction platform where users can place yes or no bets on world events, the incumbent president will beat Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, in November's vote in Pennsylvania (58 percent to 42 percent), Nevada (58 percent to 41 percent), Michigan (57 percent to 44 percent) and Wisconsin (52 percent to 47 percent.)
Biden won all of them in the 2020 presidential election, but they are all known as battleground states that could go either way when voters go to the polls in November. Newsweek contacted representatives for Trump and Biden by email to comment on this story.
Trump's victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 helped him win the White House, but he only beat Hillary Clinton in the three states by a combined 83,161 votes.
In contrast, Biden won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by a combined 255,425 votes in 2020, more than tripling Trump's margin of victory. Wisconsin, which Biden won by 20,682 votes, was the only one of the three states decided by less than 1 percentage point.
The platform data comes amid a string of positive polls for the Democrat. Nationally, on Wednesday, the platform listed the president as having a 45 percent chance of winning the election, while Trump has a 44 percent chance.
This was the first time the betting company predicted Biden would win. In February, Polymarket gave Trump a 54 percent chance of reentering the White House, with Biden 21 points behind at 33 percent.
However, an Echelon Insights survey of 2,401 registered voters, conducted between March 12-19 for the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, found that Trump was leading Biden in five swing states, including three of the states that Polymarket put Biden ahead in.
The five states the poll found Trump leading in are Arizona (51 percent to 45 percent), Georgia (52 percent to 42 percent), Michigan (51 percent to 45 percent), Nevada (51 percent to 44 percent) and Pennsylvania (49 percent to 45 percent). It had a margin of error of +/- 2.3 percentage points overall.
This poll also found Biden was leading Trump in Wisconsin, by 47 percent to 46 percent.
Last month, the Biden campaign announced plans to open 44 field offices in Wisconsin. The campaign has opened 14 offices in Pennsylvania, and announced plans to open 30 offices in Michigan. Trump's campaign has appeared less vocal about the intricacies of its campaign strategy.
While the swing state polling may come as positive news for Biden, Heath Brown, an associate professor of public policy at City University of New York, previously told Newsweek that the race was "very close."
"The polling over the last several months indicate this is a very close race. I wouldn't read too much into any one or two polls at this point. The trend seems to be that the campaign will be a very tight one and I suspect the polls will reflect that until November."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Kate Plummer is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. politics and national affairs, and ... Read more
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