Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., are working hard to increase their respective chances of becoming the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020.
Both have put on terrific shows of token resistance this week during Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. Harris played the role of the sleazy prosecutor. Booker played the role of selfless martyr. They’re trying to make their stunts pay off now in fundraising emails, and they’ll both probably score a good donor haul this week.
[Opinion: At Kavanaugh hearings, it’s Kamala vs. Cory]
But even if they don’t close out this week each with a fresh chunk of cash from the anti-Trump faithful, they’ve still benefited in other areas.
To wit, both have seen their 2020 election betting odds improve considerably this week, according to data compiled by Maxim Lott and John Stossel.
Booker’s chances jumped 50 percent, up 1.2 points this week following a stunt wherein he announced he would release supposedly confidential emails, some of which he claimed showed Kavanaugh supporting racist anti-terror tactics. The emails showed no such thing, and it turns out they weren’t even confidential, but … he fought.
Harris, for her part, saw her odds jump by 19 percent (or 1.6 points) and reach double digits, giving her a clear lead over the field at 10.1 percent odds. This comes after she won high praise from the resistance crew for asking Kavanaugh weird and misleading questions about whether he had discussed special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation with anyone employed by the law firm founded by President Trump’s personal attorney.
The website that tracks these numbers, simply titled “Election Betting Odds,” explains it takes its information from “PredictIt,” a “real-money binary-options prediction market that tests your knowledge of political events by letting you buy and trade shares.”
In contrast to the gains seen by both Harris and Booker, other potential Democratic candidates for the 2020 election have seen their odds decline this week.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for example, has seen a decrease of 0.3 points. Former Vice President Joe Biden has seen a decline of 0.2 percent this week. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has seen a bigger decline of 0.9 points.
I guess if Sanders and company want to turn those numbers around, all they have to do is stage some abjectly dishonest and absurd performative acts of anti-Trump resistance. That’s apparently what drives voter confidence and cash. Better get in on it while the getting is good.
