Political Odds: Donald Trump’s First Year

It’s official. Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America. What happens next is anyone’s guess. The Democrats are fiercely opposed to almost everything Trump stands for and the Republicans are still divided about the man who has turned their party upside-down.

One thing we know for sure is that things are going to be different. A lot of promises were made and a lot of changes have been proposed. So what’s in store for 2017?

Here are the odds!

Odds for Donald Trump in 2017:

Odds Donald Trump will still be president at the end of 2017: 1/4

There’s a slim but real chance Trump will not be president by the end of the year. His unreleased taxes, alleged corruption, and ongoing court cases could all lead to impeachment. There are a ton of unverified claims against him at the moment, and if only some of them are true, it could easily end his presidency.

Then there’s the chance he steps down and hands over the reigns to vice-president Mike Pence. Trump has no political experience and may not be willing to endure the day-to-day tedium the job entails.

Odds Trump begins construction on the border wall by year-end: 1/2

Trump went all in on his promise to build a US-Mexico border wall, and it’s probably going to be at the top of his presidential to-do list. However, whether Mexico pays for it remains to be seen. Also add in the fact he’ll have to get approval from Congress, which will likely take time.

Odds the claims in the leaked dossier are confirmed: 5/1

The unverified dossier released by Buzzfeed featured some extraordinary claims about Trump, and for a few days it dominated the news. But the claims, sources and even legitimacy of the documents have not been verified and there’s a decent chance they never will be.

O/U on how much Trump increases/decreases the debt in his first year: +500 Billion

Trump has proposed a whole host of tax cuts but has not been clear about how he plans to balance the budget with those cuts. Instead of naming areas in spending that will be cut, Trump has stated economic growth under his presidency will provide the needed counter-weight to his tax cuts.

However, economists are skeptical of this claim and it’s likely the national debt will increase under his watch.

O/U on how many Politifact “Pants On Fire” statements Trump will make in 2017: 30

Trump is notorious for making unverified or simply untrue statements. For Politifact to label a statement as “Pants On Fire”, it needs to be blatantly false. Maybe he will tighten up his rhetoric now that he is the leader of the free world, but from the looks of it, that seems pretty unlikely.

Photo credit: “Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0], via Flickr.