Beto O’Rourke Now the Odds-on Favorite to Challenge Trump in 2020, According to Online Bettors

It was about one month ago when Beto O’Rourke’s challenge to Texas Senator Ted Cruz fell just short of becoming a historic upset for Democrats.

While O’Rourke did not defeat the incumbent Republican Senator, his battle definitely gained him notoriety among his party and throughout America.

Prior to his election loss, O’Rourke was not really considered a front runner to represent Democrats in the 2020 presidential race, but within days of that loss his name began popping up. In fact, just two days after the election, betting odd checking website OddsChecker had O’Rourke listed as one of the top three 2020 Democratic candidates based on adjustable real-time odds.

Now, nearly a month later, O’Rourke seems to be climbing the ranks. While a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll has O’Rourke trailing both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in terms of who Democratic and Independent voters would support, various online betting websites predict a different outcome.

Using Oddchecker, O’Rourke and Kamala Harris are in a dead heat in terms of who bettors believe will win the 2020 presidency out of the possible Democratic candidates.

O’Rourke actually holds a slight lead over Harris on various betting websites such as bet365, Coral.co.uk, WilliamHill, BoyleSports, MatchBook, and Betfair. While Oddchecker ranks Kamala Harris slightly ahead of O’Rourke, they are really both neck and neck, well ahead of both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden respectively.

While online betting websites are certainly no great predictor of political candidates’ chances, they do represent the overall opinion of the public to some extent.

It’s also worth noting that most of these websites do not allow US gamblers to place bets, so the opinions are mostly those of people living in Europe.