Iowa has spent most of 2026 leaning red at the edges and tied at the center. But on Election Day itself, the state’s Senate race finally tipped… if only by a hair. For the first time all cycle, Democrat Josh Turek is the one ahead on the Polymarket odds board, not Republican Ashley Hinson. Any late twist could shift this again in the hours ahead, so it’s worth following Action Network’s coverage as results come in.
Iowa Senate odds flip to Turek in Polymarket Midterms Market
On Kalshi, Josh Turek is sitting at 52%, up 7 points on the day and just past Ashley Hinson, who has slipped to 51%: each one priced on its own separate YES/NO contract, so the two figures aren’t two sides of the same coin and won’t always add up to a clean 100.
Polymarket tells a similar story: the market jumped from 42% to 50% in favor of Democrats in a single 24-hour stretch heading into Monday, and by Tuesday morning the two candidates were trading almost dead even, both around 51 cents on the dollar.
None of that settles anything. A point or 2 in a market this size sits well inside normal noise, and the lead has swapped back and forth for weeks. What’s changed is the direction: for most of October, Hinson held a mid-single-digit cushion. That cushion is gone.
Final polls: Times/Siena has Turek up one point
The clearest sign this has become a true coin flip is in the polling, not just the markets. A New York Times/Siena College survey released this week as part of a wider round of final battleground polling has Hinson and Turek separated by a single point, 48% to 47%, with Hinson holding the technical edge: well inside the margin of error. Other late surveys split in opposite directions: Echelon Insights had Turek up two in late October, while co/efficient had Hinson up two just days before the election.
Polling from Fox News offers a clue to why a historically red state is this tight: Turek is holding onto 96% of Democrats, while Hinson is retaining 87% of Republicans. That 9-point gap in party loyalty has done a lot of the work in closing the distance.
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Why Iowa could decide Senate control
Republicans are defending a 53-47 Senate majority, so Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take it back. Iowa wasn’t an obvious pickup on paper; Donald Trump carried it by more than 13 points in 2024, and Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat here since 2008. But it’s turned into one of a handful of long-shot states, alongside Texas, Ohio and Alaska, where Republicans ended up spending money they didn’t expect to.
Kalshi traders gave Democrats a 74% chance of winning the Senate as of Monday, the highest reading since the market opened and up from 63% a month earlier. It’s worth the contrast: Iowa’s Governor’s race, on Polymarket, where Democrat Rob Sand is polling near 90% on Polymarket against Republican Zach Lahn, isn’t competitive at all. The Senate race is the outlier.
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Turek vs. Hinson: where each candidate’s base stands
- Josh Turek (D): A state representative from Council Bluffs and two-time Paralympic gold medalist in wheelchair basketball, Turek has centered his run on health care costs and protecting the Affordable Care Act and Medicare, trying to end an 18-year drought for Iowa Democrats in Senate races.
- Ashley Hinson (R): A third-term U.S. House member from Iowa’s 2nd District, Hinson has leaned on tax cuts, lowering medication costs and her alignment with President Trump. She holds a firm anti-abortion position that plays well with her base but has created friction with some swing voters.
Last-minute checklist: what to check before trading Iowa
- Polls close at 8 PM local time (9 PM ET). Iowa sits in a single time zone, so there’s no early-closing pocket to watch for.
- Treat a coin-flip market as fragile. With both platforms separated by a point or two, one unexpected county or a late turnout shift can move the price fast.
- Check the spread, not just the headline number. Turek’s Kalshi contract was priced at 52¢ to buy YES and 50¢ to buy NO Tuesday morning: a tight gap that still reflects real uncertainty.
- Watch volume. Iowa’s Senate markets have pulled in more than $2 million on Polymarket alone, among the heavier contracts of the cycle.
- Cross-check calls against the AP. The AP doesn’t project races: it waits until no plausible path remains for the trailing candidate, which can take a while in a race this close.
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