Ron DeSantis’ fade continues in 2024 betting markets, with Vice President Kamala Harris the latest to eclipse him.
Per the Election Betting Odds website, which aggregates the Betfair, Smarkets, PredictIt and Polymarket platforms, DeSantis is given a 1.4% chance of winning the White House next November.
Harris, meanwhile, is seen as a slightly better bet, with a 1.6% chance of becoming President next year.
Both of them trail other figures, including some non-candidates. Former President Donald Trump (41.9%), President Joe Biden (29%), Nikki Haley (8.3%), Gavin Newsom (6.8%), Robert Kennedy (3.3%) and Michelle Obama (2.3%) all inspire more investor confidence than Harris or DeSantis.
The Florida Governor has been predicting Biden may not run, and has been saying Harris is the person most likely to replace the President on the 2024 ticket.
“I would probably say Kamala Harris will muscle into it, but I think you would have J.B. Pritzker, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren. I think they’d all be scrambling for it,” DeSantis said on the “Clay & Buck Show.”
The elevation of Harris to pole position is interesting given DeSantis has spent her entire term as Vice President diminishing her, seemingly relishing the contrast between himself and the first Black woman to be VP. A November appeal to donors threatened to send “Kamala back to her liberal homeland,” a statement that belies the fact that California is as American as Florida is.
The Governor has relished invoking Harris’ name to galvanize his base.
In August, the DeSantis campaign stole a page from bygone talk show host David Letterman, with a coffee cup and a T-shirt spotlighting “10 things Kamala Harris should focus her time on.”
Nine of those things involve “closing the border.” And the 10th? “Making sure Joe Biden doesn’t fall.”
The campaign texted supporters with a pitch.
“Gov. DeSantis is going to cause Kamala Harris to start job hunting; we understand why she’s obsessed with hurting our campaign. Still, we’ve put together some suggestions of what she could be focusing on instead. What do you think? Do you want to help us remind our Vice President to … do her job? Click here to donate, and we’ll send you a discounted 10-things tee or mug to start off your DeSantis merch collection,” the promotional text read.
DeSantis, who recently blamed the Vice President for national “decline,” spent weeks this Summer beefing with Harris over her critiques of Florida Black history standards, which contain language suggesting slavery could benefit the enslaved. He bemoaned her attacks on the trail.
“You can’t be operating in bad faith against your political opponents, 24/7,” DeSantis lamented in Iowa. “You can’t be doing fake narratives, and we have some Republicans that actually sided with Kamala’s lies just to try to get cheap shots in on me.”
The Governor has also focused on Harris as so-called “impeachment insurance” for at least a year.
“So, here’s the thing. I thought Biden picking her at first was the worst decision ever because she’s not great. But she’s like the best impeachment insurance and 25th Amendment insurance anyone could have,” DeSantis said in July 2022.
“Because as bad as Biden is, even though he can barely read the teleprompter, and as much as people disapprove of him, nobody wants Harris, and so they’d much rather stick with Biden floundering around than actually turn the wheels of power over to somebody that clearly is in over her head.”
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