Election Odds Update: How Did Kamala Harris’ Widely Panned CNN Interview Affect Her?

Vice President Kamala Harris’ much-anticipated CNN interview on Thursday did not go as she would have hoped, at least according to presidential election oddsmakers.

Newsweek reported, “The vice president went from being the favorite to win with odds of 10/11 (52.4 percent) on Thursday to tied with Donald Trump on 19/20 (51.3 percent) each on Friday morning, according to the Star Sports betting company.”

“Over the same period, Trump’s odds of victory in November improved from 21/20 (48.8 percent) before the interview to 20/21 (51.2 percent), according to U.K. based bookmaker Betfair,” the outlet noted.

Star Sports betting analyst William Kedjanyi also spoke to Newsweek.

“Vice President Harris is now tied at 19/20 with Republican candidate Donald Trump, drifting slightly from 10/11 yesterday,” the analyst said. “The Californian had been 5/6 in recent weeks but she has failed to surge ahead of Trump in the market.”

Kedjanyi added: “GOP supporters will hope Trump can now go on to tip the balance in his favor, before November’s presidential election.”

Forbes pointed out that while Trump was behind Harris by about 2 points among bookmakers following the Democratic National Convention last week, but then gained some ground over the past week following Robert F. Kennedy’s endorsement of the Republican last Friday.

“Bettors on the crypto-based betting platform Polymarket are giving Trump slightly better odds of 50% to Harris’ 49%, while predicting both candidates have a roughly equal chance of winning the swing state of Pennsylvania,” Forbes said.

After all the glitz and glamour at the DNC last week, the visuals of the CNN interview made Harris look small, and not unlike the Wizard of Oz, created a “person behind the curtain”-effect.

Spectator editor-at-large Ben Domenech noted, “Television is mostly about visuals. Whoever set up this visual is terrible at their job. Bad lighting, makeup, hair, color choice, Walz’s collar askew, angle making Kamala look small, water cup center shot, off the rack poorly fitting suit… this whole thing just looks bad.”

Television is mostly about visuals. Whoever set up this visual is terrible at their job. Bad lighting, makeup, hair, color choice, Walz’s collar askew, angle making Kamala look small, water cup center shot, off the rack poorly fitting suit… this whole thing just looks bad. pic.twitter.com/6KqlthfuKn

— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) August 30, 2024

Then there was her body language, which was telling. GOP Rep. Byron Donalds did a good job on Fox News Friday articulating the message she was sending.

“Forget all the things that she said,” Donalds contended. “People go back and watch her body language.”

“When you ask her about her policies and the flip-flopping, she’s looking down, she’s looking small. She doesn’t look like she has confidence in what she’s saying, because she doesn’t believe it,” the congressman continued. “She’s trying to remember what they coached her to say.”

“That is not the leadership that our country needs in this pressing hour. We need Donald J. Trump,” Donalds concluded.

Go back & watch Kamala’s body-language:

When she’s asked about family, she’s relaxed & makes eye-contact.

When she’s asked about policy, she’s NOT CONFIDENT & LOOKS AWAY.

Why?

Because she doesn’t believe these policies & is trying to remember what staffers coached her to say. pic.twitter.com/5jbqyX1RGj

— Byron Donalds (@ByronDonalds) August 30, 2024

Most rational folks learn to take what politicians say with a grain of salt, but when a candidate is making major policies flips just a few months out from Election Day, buyer (especially) beware.

Harris said she now backs building a border wall, opposes the banning of fracking, and is not pushing for Medicare-for-All as she did as a presidential candidate in 2019.

CNN’s Dana Bash raised the issue of major policy flips in the interview.

“How should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made, that you’ve explained some of here in your policy? Is it because you have more experience now and you’ve learned more about the information? Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary?” Bash asked.

“Should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?” the CNN host further queried.

Harris responded, “I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed.”

That’s all you need to know.

Her values will equal her policies. Harris herself offered the perfect example to prove the point.

Having co-sponsored the multi-trillion dollar Green New Deal as a senator, as vice president she cast the tie-breaking vote in the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022.

“You mention the Green New Deal. I have always believed — and I have worked on it — that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time. We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act. … That value has not changed,” Harris told Bash.

By the way, the “green” initiatives included in the IRA are costing almost three times more than the administration forecast, Bloomberg reported in August 2023.

In April 2023, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, working with the investment firm Goldman Sachs, updated their estimated cost of the legislation’s green initiatives from $385 billion over a 10-year period to more than $1 trillion.

The CNN interview, her first sit down interview since becoming a presidential candidate 40 days ago, did not go well for Harris, and the oddsmakers and the voting population at large could readily see it.