The race for the White House is in its final stretch, and the states are starting to fall in line behind their nominees.
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has been an early favorite to win on Election Day, but the final week of the campaign saw Republican nominee Donald Trump narrowing the gap as Republican partisans rally behind their party’s controversial nominee.
New polls released by the New York Times/CBS and the Washington Post/ABC showed Clinton with a slimmer lead following FBI’s announcement that they were reviewing the former secretary of state’s emails. Still, it’s the state results that matter in this race to rack up delegates to clinch the presidential elections—a matter that has also caught the eye of eagle-eyed oddsmakers.
Popular vote odds
According to sportsbook Bodog, Maryland is the state most likely to vote Democrat at -10000 (1/100), while Oklahoma and West Virginia are most likely to vote Republican at -20000 (1/20).
States with the closest odds are Florida (Democrat +110 vs Republican -750), North Carolina (Democrat -160 vs Republican +120), Nevada (Democrat -200 vs Republican +150), and Arizona (Democrat +175 vs Republican -260).
The two presidential candidates are currently tied in Florida and North Carolina, according to a poll ran by Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project. The gap has also narrowed in Michigan (Democrat -375 vs Republican +240), while Ohio (Democrat +200 vs Republican -300) remains a dead heat and Pennsylvania (Democrat -300 vs Republican +200) shows signs of tilting towards Clinton.
Clinching both Florida and North Carolina will give Trump a good chance of winning the presidential elections. Clinton, in comparison, could lose both states and still win.
Clinton and Trump are considered to be the least popular presidential candidates in the history of American politics, according to sportsbook Pinnacle. In fact, Clinton has only seen her odds going as high as 1.667 before tracing back, while Trump’s price has reached a dizzying 6.91.
However, the U.S. elections has managed to attract a huge interest among bettors in the last eight years. Pinnacle said its betting volume on the U.S. election increased by 290 times between 2008 and 2016.