We already recapped how pundits wasted little time scoring Wedensday’s debate a clear cut win for Mitt Romney. But here’s further proof that the general consensus leaving Denver is that the GOP challenger scored a major win: President Obama’s online odds of winning re-election took a noticeable dip during the 90-odd minutes he and Romney were on stage.
Intrade users pegged the president’s chance of reelection at about 75 percent earlier this week, before dropping them to 71 percent as the debate began. From there, they fell another 4 percent by the time he left the stage in Denver, and another tick down to 66 percent in the hours that followed.
Romney’s odds of winning, meanwhile, climbed by about 30 percent over the same stretch and now stand just shy of 34 percent. To be clear, that still leaves Obama as the clear favorite with November 6 only weeks away, but it nonetheless gives Democrats one more thing to fret about heading into a Thursday news cycle that is likely to be all about Romney’s strong debate performance.
