Presidential election odds: Who wins if vote is contested?

Just as we thought we were entering the home stretch of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, some wild comments from President Donald Trump threaten to flip everything we thought we knew about the election. With the first debate set to take place on September 29, we have up to date odds from Bodog, a contest from Fan Duel, and some insight on what will happen if the vote gets thrown out.

Let’s start with the big question: What happens if Trump tries to throw out the election result? Although practically unthinkable from a certain principled perspective, don’t act like this hasn’t happened before. The Supreme Court gave George W. Bush the presidency in 2000 before all ballots in Florida had been counted, creating precedence for presidential election shenanigans.

Trump’s administration, seeing that they are losing in important polls, have started to ask important states to consider ignoring their popular vote totals, citing a lack of confidence in mail-in ballots. They couldn’t possibly get away with it, right? Well, much like in 2000, such a move would likely end up in the courts, and Donald Trump is likely to get a new right leaning Supreme Court Justice.

Five votes could matter more than anything else to decide the next president. There are currently three left leaning judges on the court (Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan). Chief Justice John Roberts has been the deciding vote in most controversial decisions of late, and could side with the more liberal side of the court. After that, Joe Biden has to pray that someone like Neil Gorsuch likes him, and democracy, better than Trump.