We’re hours from finding out how the 2026 midterms turn out. Traditional polls and prediction markets agree on some states and split on others… will reality side with the markets?
Democrats are chasing a historic result, trying to turn long-held red states blue. Republicans are working just as hard to avoid a blue wave and hold onto seats that, if they survive the night, would count as a win against the odds. A handful of races are still close enough to swing the final numbers, though, so here’s where things stand before results start coming in.
These are the top House and Senate prediction markets to watch at Kalshi and Polymarket.
Election Day prediction markets: where the hottest midterm markets stand this morning
Kalshi’s own four-way contract doesn’t split out the House and Senate individually: it prices a full sweep, a full Republican hold, and the two split outcomes separately, so the single-chamber figures above come from combining those. Either way, the two platforms are telling close to the same story, and have been converging for weeks.
| Market | Kalshi | Polymarket |
| Democrats control the House | ~95% | 95% |
| Democrats control the Senate | ~70% | 73% |
| Full Democratic sweep | 70% | 72% |
How we picked the markets worth watching
Rather than list every contract on the board, this roundup leans on four things:
- Trading volume.
- How much a price has moved in the final stretch.
- Whether a race actually decides which party holds the majority.
- Where market pricing and public polling tell noticeably different stories.
A market can be confident and still be wrong, so it’s worth knowing when the crowd and the pollsters disagree. Every market tells its own story, so it’s worth following our coverage closely as news breaks that could shift the race.
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Control markets: Senate, House and balance of power
The swing here has been dramatic. Kalshi’s combined Balance of Power contract, the one that prices a full sweep either way, started the year near 30% for Democrats and has climbed to 70%, on $73.3 million in trading.
The Senate control question alone has drawn even more interest, with more than $114 million changed hands on that single contract. Democrats also hold a 6.4-point edge on Kalshi’s internal measure of party strength, something the platform calls its American Power Index.
The action hasn’t been limited to the national picture: in one recent 24-hour span, the Texas Senate race outpaced every other contract at $1.2 million, with California’s governor’s race and the Los Angeles mayoral race close behind at $628,000 and $592,000.
That’s no accident: Texas is one of the states that could decide the whole election. It’s been reliably Republican for more than three decades, and if James Talarico wins, it would turn blue for the first time in that stretch: a big win for Democrats.
Marquee Senate races
| State | Leading candidate | Market odds |
| Texas | James Talarico (D) | 73-74% |
| Michigan | Abdul El-Sayed (D) | 78-79% |
| Ohio | Sherrod Brown (D) | 73% |
| Maine | Troy Jackson (D) | 72-73% |
| North Carolina | Roy Cooper (D) | 98% |
| Alaska | Mary Peltola (D) | 71-74% |
| Kansas | Adam Hamilton (D) | 60-62% |
| Iowa | Ashley Hinson (R) | 52-54% |
| South Carolina | Darline Graham (R) | 70% |
| Georgia | Jon Ossoff (D) | 97% |
Texas Senate Race Winner
Texas has been the marquee trade of the cycle: Talarico’s odds on Kalshi hit a record high Thursday after a CNN/SSRS poll put him ahead of Ken Paxton 49%-43%, a wider gap than the survey’s margin of error. Kalshi’s own margin-of-victory contract has him winning by 2.7 points.
Michigan Senate Race Winner
Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost the Democratic primary to Abdul El-Sayed, crossed party lines Sunday to endorse Republican Mike Rogers, after a planned joint church appearance with El-Sayed fell apart over his campaign’s handling of an outside group’s ad on Gaza. It’s the kind of defection that would normally rattle a market two days out: instead, El-Sayed’s price barely budged.
Kansas Senate Race Winner
No Democrat has carried a Senate race there since 1932, but Adam Hamilton, a Methodist pastor, has pulled ahead of Republican incumbent Roger Marshall on both Kalshi and Polymarket, with the bulk of October polling, including CNN and Emerson surveys, showing him up by several points. Markets haven’t fully priced in a historic flip, but they’ve moved a long way toward one.
Iowa Senate Race Winner
Republican Ashley Hinson and Democrat Josh Turek, a state legislator and former Paralympic athlete, have traded small leads in poll after poll since Iowa’s June primary, with recent surveys splitting almost evenly between them. Kalshi still gives Hinson a slight edge, but the margin is thin enough that a late shift in turnout could flip the outcome either way.
South Carolina Senate Race Winner
OP Sen. Darline Graham, appointed over the summer after her brother Lindsey Graham’s death, was priced at 78% on Kalshi as recently as Friday. By today, that number had slipped to 70%, as Democratic pediatrician Annie Andrews closes in: one recent poll even showed the race statistically tied. It’s not the marquee battleground Texas or Michigan are, but it’s tightening fast enough to watch.
Alaska Senate Race Winner
Alaska carries an extra wrinkle: the Justice Department sued last month to block certification of the race if Sullivan loses, pointing to a second, unrelated candidate also named Dan Sullivan on the ballot. A federal judge fast-tracked Democrats’ motion to dismiss the case and set a ruling deadline of today, so the legal fight could still affect how fast, or how cleanly, this race gets called.
If you want to read more about politics and elections, visit Prediction Proand read our midterms predictions.
Where prediction markets and polls disagree
Statistician Nate Silver’s FLIPR model has Democrats at roughly 95% for the House and in the high 70s for the Senate: higher than what the prediction markets show. “That’s a little bit higher than prediction markets, but I feel decent about that,” Silver said recently.
Cook Political Report calls seven Senate races true toss-ups but leans toward Democrats as the “slight favorites,” while Sabato’s Crystal Ball says it’s more confident about a House flip than a Senate one.
Not everyone buys the market numbers at face value. Thomas Miller, who runs a model at Northwestern that adjusts Kalshi and Polymarket prices into cleaner probabilities, had Republicans’ odds of holding the Senate at 23.4% on Oct. 27, well below Kalshi’s own 36% that same day.
His argument: a prediction market price reflects what traders are willing to pay, not necessarily a true probability, especially in a race as close and state-specific as the fight for the Senate. By Wednesday morning, all of this becomes much simpler to check.
