Donald Trump odds shorten after vote against him fails at Cleveland convention, despite embarrassing speech by wife Melania
In spite of a quite embarrassing speech given by Melania Trump yesterday, her husband Donald is looking marginally more likely to take the White House, according to one bookmaker.
Betway has cut the odds on Trump from 9/4 to 2/1, pushing Clinton out from 1/3 to 2/5. She remains the clear favourite to win the presidency and take the Democrats to three consecutive terms.
However, punters think Trump had a good first day at the GOP conference in Cleveland.
Read more: Nate Silver thinks Donald Trump has just 20-25 per cent chance of beating Clinton
That is, despite a speech that was virtually lifted by his wife Melania from an address Michelle Obama made in 2008.
WATCH: Melania Trump's speech plagiarizes passage from Michelle Obama's 2008 speech https://t.co/Dcffhp2Dpghttps://t.co/8uizLfaLWH
— CNN (@CNN) July 19, 2016
But the plagairism claims have not deterred Trump's team. Its communications adviser Jason Miller released a statement after the speech, which said: "In writing her beautiful speech, Melania's team of writers took notes on her life's inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking.
"Melania's immigrant experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which made it such a success."
Read more: Silicon Valley really, really doesn't want Donald Trump to take the White House
Trump's team also gained a boost after yesterday's revelation that anti-Trump delegates would be unsuccessful in their attempts to block the billionaire's nomination at the party conference.
A vote that would have permitted delegates to back a candidate of their choice faltered after three states reportedly backed out.
Critics of Trump were ambitiously aiming to replace rules with ones that "unbound" pledged delegates. Though they never looked like they might win (in terms of votes), they wanted a public display of dissatisfaction and a roll call to vote on convention rules.
Although this didn't pass, Trump's candidacy has caused turmoil in the party. A faction of the Republicans are still refusing to endorse him, including former presidents George HW Bush and George W Bush, as well as Republican nominee Mitt Romney.