High tension before the election

Trump in the lead in betting odds

Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump - the world looks to the USA.

(Bild: AP)

The fateful election is keeping the USA on tenterhooks: will there be a spectacular comeback - or a woman president for the first time? In any case, the betting odds speak for themselves.

The polls are so close ahead of today's US election that no serious forecast is possible. In the betting shops, however, Donald Trump is clearly ahead of Kamala Harris. Anyone who bets around ten dollars on the ex-president will receive an average of 15 dollars if he wins, compared to 25.50 dollars for the vice president. Her victory is therefore considered much less likely.

However, in the recent past, the polls have been wrong just as often as the betting shops.

• In 2016, for example, the odds pointed to a victory for Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump. It turned out differently.
• In 2020, the betting shops assumed that Donald Trump would be re-elected. In the end, however, Joe Biden won the election - narrowly but nevertheless.
• And in the so-called midterm elections in 2022, in which Congress and a third of the Senate were re-elected, the betting agencies predicted a landslide victory for the Republicans. However, the Republican victory in the House of Representatives turned out to be far smaller than expected and the Democrats were able to defend their narrow majority in the Senate.

Donald Trump fights to the last.

(Bild: CHRISTIAN MONTERROSA / AFP)

No reliance (anymore)
So you can no longer rely on the betting odds. Up until the 1920s, the betting odds were (almost) always right. Then came the right to vote for women and shook everything up. Until today. The reason for this is possibly that more men bet than women, and the odds are based more on the voting behavior of men.

So we won't know until after the election - possibly not until several days later - whether Trump has managed a spectacular comeback or whether a woman will enter the White House as US President for the first time.

How is that possible?
"But how is that possible?" many Europeans are asking themselves. How can Donald Trump, a convicted felon in the first instance, who has been ordered to pay millions in compensation for a sexual assault and who is also facing three other criminal proceedings, including for inciting a mob to storm the Capitol, get Harris, who seems so likeable, into so much trouble?

How is it that the man who to this day maintains the lie that he actually won the 2020 election against Joe Biden can win so many Americans over to his side?

There are many reasons:

• The most important campaign issue is illegal migration. As vice-president, Harris was supposed to find diplomatic ways to solve the problem - and hasn't achieved much. Even though the number of migrants has recently declined and is roughly on a par with the Trump presidency.

Harris wants to be the first woman to move into the White House as president.

(Bild: APA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES/TASOS KATOPODIS)

• The cost of living in the USA has risen immensely, with inflation ranging between six and nine percent for a year and a half. In the meantime, the rate of inflation has fallen back to a normal level, but of course this does not mean that everything is getting cheaper again. It is just becoming less expensive less quickly.
• Even though the US economy has recently grown by two percent, unemployment is low and wages are also rising, this positive development has not yet reached many people in the USA. Around 40 percent of Americans have to take out a loan for an expensive car repair or an unplanned purchase of more than 400 dollars.

Analyzed for the "Krone": foreign policy expert Christian Hauenstein

(Bild: Krone KREATIV, stock.adobe.com)

Everything was cheaper under Trump
The consequences of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine are primarily to blame for the high prices. But Trump can blame Biden and Harris for this. After all, everything was cheaper under him as president. And he will make sure of that again in the future. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, seems awkward when she promises a cost cap for food, for example.

Many even think it's cool
Many voters don't care about Trump's slogans, which so many in Europe are appalled by. Many even think it's cool that he is attacking the political establishment in Washington, which many people hate.

In the USA, it is generally very well received when someone has economic success. He is not envied, but admired. Trump is a billionaire, which leads many to conclude that he must know a lot about business and is therefore good for the country.

Tuesday is election day in the USA.

(Bild: x.com/VoteCommon)

Trump has delivered
From a Christian evangelical perspective, Trump has delivered in his first presidency: He has cast the Supreme Court in a conservative light and in this way made abortions much more difficult to almost impossible in many states. In return, many deeply devout Christians hold his appearance, his lies and his previous sexual excursions outside of marriage against him.

Trump is a man
And last but not least, Trump is a man. Many American men cannot imagine a woman in the Oval Office - this is particularly true among the black and Hispanic voter groups that are so important to the Democrats. It is not for nothing that former President Barack Obama explicitly called on men of color to jump over their shadows and vote for a woman.

But 42 percent of American women also do not trust a woman to hold the office of commander-in-chief of the most powerful armed forces in the world.