2020 Senate Election Odds
| Scenario | Odds | Implied Probability |
|---|---|---|
| Republicans to have over 50 seats | -150 | 54.5% |
| Republicans to have under 50 seats | +200 | 30.3% |
| Republicans to have exactly 50 seats | +500 | 15% |
Odds as of Friday, March 20 and via European sportsbook Ladbrokes. If you’re new to betting, -150 odds mean a $150 bet would net $100 with a win. You can also covert odds using our Betting Odds Calculator. Note that the implied probabilities are vig-free.
The 2020 presidential race seems to be a two-man competition at this point between President Donald Trump and former VP Joe Biden. But there are many more consequential races in November, including in the senate.
There are 100 senate seats, and right now the Republican party holds a majority with 53 seats; they also have the tiebreaker vote due to holding the White House (VP Mike Pence is currently that vote). The Democrats technically have 45 senators right now, but the two independents caucus with them, effectively making it a 53-47 split.
There will be 33 senate seats scheduled for election this November, along with two special elections in Arizona and Georgia due to the death of John McCain and the retirement of Johnny Isakson, respectively.
Democrats, who made incredible gains in the 2018 mid-term elections in the House of Representatives, weren't able to gain a control in the senate, mostly because of how the races shaped up. Many more of their seats were up for grabs, but it's an entirely different story in 2020.
Of the 35 seats available, Republicans will be defending 23 (65.7%) of them. In order to gain a majority, Democrats will need to gain a net of three seats if they win the White House — again, the VP would be the tiebreaking vote — or four seats if Trump is re-elected.
The betting market currently projects Republicans to retain control of the senate, giving them a juice-free implied probability of 54.5% to do so. In contrast, there's a 45.5% chance of Democrats winning a majority or splitting the seats 50-50.
This race is obviously a volatile one right now, just like the presidential one due the coronavirus epidemic and resulting economic challenges. We've already seen Trump's re-election odds fall in recent weeks, and the senate odds are at least moderately correlated to those.
Also complicating things is the recent reports that numerous senators sold off stocks in February after a private briefing on the then-impending COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. That story will likely make the senate races a more popular topic in the mainstream media.
There have been five senators implicated in the story — four Republicans and one Democrat — and two of those Republicans, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, are up for re-election in November.
2020 Senate Elections
See the full list of the senate races this November 2020 below:
- Alabama: Doug Jones (Democrat)
- Alaska: Dan Sullivan (Republican)
- Arizona: Martha McSally (Republican) — special election
- Arkansas: Tom Cotton (Republican)
- Colorado: Cory Gardner (Republican)
- Delaware: Chris Coons (Democrat)
- Georgia: David Perdue (Republican)
- Georgia: Kelly Loeffler (Republican) — special election
- Idaho: Jim Risch (Republican)
- Illinois: Dick Durbin (Democrat)
- Iowa: Joni Ernst (Republican)
- Kansas: Pat Roberts (Republican)
- Kentucky: Mitch McConnell (Republican)
- Louisiana: Bill Cassidy (Republican)
- Maine: Susan Collins (Republican)
- Massachusetts: Ed Markey (Democrat)
- Michigan: Gary Peters (Democrat)
- Minnesota: Tina Smith (Democrat)
- Mississippi: Cindy Hyde-Smith (Republican)
- Montana: Steve Daines (Republican)
- Nebraska: Ben Sasse (Republican)
- New Hampshire: Jeanne Shaheen (Democrat)
- New Jersey: Cory Booker (Democrat)
- New Mexico: Tom Udall (Democrat)
- North Carolina: Thom Tillis (Republican)
- Oklahoma: Jim Inhofe (Republican)
- Oregon: Jeff Merkley (Democrat)
- Rhode Island: Jack Reed (Democrat)
- South Carolina: Lindsey Graham (Republican)
- South Dakota: Mike Rounds (Republican)
- Tennessee: Lamar Alexander (Republican)
- Texas: John Cornyn (Republican)
- Virginia: Mark Warner (Democrat)
- West Virginia: Shelley Moore Capito (Republican)
- Wyoming: Mike Enzi (Republican)
Vig-free implied probabilities mean that the fee Betfair charges bettors for a wager has been factored out so that the implied probabilities of odds for a given market all add up to 100% exactly.
