According to numbers published by Bet Online, an online bookmaker, oddsmakers gave Trump a 61.5 percent chance of winning the presidency by once again capturing the Electoral College but losing the popular vote.
Still, betting lines gave Bloomberg the best odds among Democratic candidates to win the Electoral College when running against Trump. The lower the number, the more the candidate is favored to win. The site puts Bloomberg at -125 against Trump in the Electoral College, while every other candidate is above +100.
Once the national frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden, at +160, had the worst odds. That means a $100 bet on Biden would pay out $160. The site puts Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at +105, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg at +105, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar at +140 and any other candidate at +140.
Overall, Sanders appears to be the favorite for winning the Democrat nomination. According to an aggregate of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics, Sanders is in first place nationally. He’s trailed by Biden, who’s plummeted after an unexpected fourth-place finish during the Iowa caucuses and a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire. Bloomberg, who has yet to compete nationally but is fueling his campaign with a massive spending effort, is in third place.
A RealClearPolitics average of polling on a general election match-up between Sanders and Trump shows the Vermont senator ahead by 3.7 percentage points. A matchup between Bloomberg and Trump, however, shows the former mayor beating the incumbent by 6 percentage points.
Last week, Trump insisted that he'd rather face-off against Bloomberg rather than Sanders in the general election, despite pure glee among some Republicans at the prospect of the president, who's campaigning on the strength of the U.S. economy, running against a self-avowed democratic socialist.
"Frankly, I would rather run against Bloomberg than Bernie Sanders," he told reporters. "Because Sanders has real followers, whether you like them or not, whether you agree with them or not — I happen to think it's terrible what he says — but he has followers."
