President Trump Cites ‘Bookies’ In Latest Claim to 2020 Election Win

• Trump cites “bookies” installing him as Election Night favorite as evidence that Biden’s election win was fraudulent
• Trump odds got up to -775 to win at BetOnline on Election Night
• Biden wound up winning 306 electoral votes, which puts him well past the threshold of 270

Back on November 8, most major media companies around the United States projected that Joe Biden was the unofficial winner of the 2020 presidential election. Biden managed to build insurmountable leads in a number of swing statest that had previously been crucial to President Donald Trump in his upset win over Hillary Clinton back in 2016.

While Biden actually wound up winning a larger percentage of the vote in most of those same states than Trump did four years ago, the president has continued to insist that he, not Biden, was the actual winner. Before the election, Trump warned that the only way he could feasibly lose in his bid for re-election would be if the Democratic Party managed to commit wide-scale voter fraud in order to overturn the rightful result.

Trump Pushes on With False Fraud Claims

While the Electoral College will soon convene and make Biden’s victory official, Trump has shown no signs of slowing down in his quest to stay in power. The president’s legal team, which consists of luminairies like Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Powell, has filed a number of lawsuits all over the country in the weeks since the election. In the meantime, Trump has repeated his claims of a rigged election, both on Twitter and during his few public appearances.

On Tuesday, Trump’s attempts to thwart Biden’s victory took another blow when the US Supreme Court unanimously declined to hear a case that had been brought forth by some of Trump’s allies.

Pennsylvania Congressman Mike Kelly led a lawsuit that called for the nullification of Biden’s claim to Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, but all nine SCOTUS Justices were unanimous in their decision to not even hear the case.

As of this writing with votes still being counted, Biden has amassed over 81 million votes nationwide. Trump has earned over 74 million votes. Biden has unofficially earned a total of 306 electoral votes, which is ironically the same number of electoral votes Trump won four years ago. The winning candidate needs to win a minimum of 270 electoral votes to be elected president.

“Bookies” Listed Trump as Election Night Favorite

That setback means Trump has thus far failed in over 50 different legal efforts to try and overturn the election all around the country. Even with overwhelming evidence that supports the validity of Biden’s win, the president has not indicated any willingness to even consider the idea of conceding defeat.

In fact, he has decided to keep pushing the issue on social media. On Wednesday morning, Trump cited the fact that betting markets had swung the odds heavily in his favor on Election Night as proof of the Democrats having pulled some shady stunts to pull off a win for Biden:

At 10:00 P.M. on Election Evening, we were at 97% win with the so-called “bookies”.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2020

While many of Trump’s tweets have been flagged for misinformation over the past month, this is one of the few that will likely stand without objection. That’s because it’s one of the few Trump tweets that actually doesn’t contain any falsehoods.

In case you forgot, Trump’s early wins in Florida and Ohio on Election Night caused betting sites to tip the scales heavily in favor of the president winning re-election. Despite having entered the race as a minus-money favorite to win both states, online betting sites like BetOnline installed Trump as a fairly heavy favorite at one point while votes were still being counted.

We know what happened next, of course. Trump’s early leads in a number of swing states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, wound up dwindling as more and more mail-in votes were counted. Because mail-in votes in this year’s election heaviliy favored Biden, Trump’s early leads in those states were mere mirages. The majority of Trump’s voters voted on Election Day, and it just so happened that those votes were the first to be counted and recorded.

Trump Given +600 Odds to Win 2024 Republican Nomination

It’s a certainty that Trump will leave office on January 20 when Biden is inaugurated. While Trump will almost surely never admit defeat, it’s worth wondering whether he is already planning on mounting another bid for the White House four years from now.

Various media reports have indicated that Trump is privately considering the idea of announcing his candidacy for the 2024 Republican nomination on Inauguration Day in an attempt to counterprogram Biden’s swearing-in.

While Trump may have eyes on running again in four years, a lot can happen between now and then. As of this writing, BetOnline has Trump listed as a +600 underdog to win the Republican Party’s nomination in ’24. That puts him behind current vice president Mike Pence (+350) and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (+350).

Trump throwing his hat into the ring again could possibly have a cooling effect on the rest of the Republican field. It’s no secret that up-and-comers in the party, including Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, and Haley, have big political ambitions. All three would seem to be logical choices for the Republicans to consider nominating in the future, but it will be fascinating to watch how Trump’s grip on the party’s base evolves between now and the next election cycle.

Trump faces even longer +1000 odds of actually winning the next election. Those odds put him behind Pence (+800) and Haley (+900), as well as prospective Democratic candidates like Biden (+450) and Kamala Harris (+600), and on par with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (+1000).