Democrats win the Senate and the House: how Kalshi and Polymarket called the 2026 midterms, and the three upsets they missed
Democrats took both chambers on 3 November, flipping Republican Senate seats in Texas, North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Kansas, Iowa and South Carolina. Both prediction markets had the right favourite for each chamber; the favourite won 98% of the races Kalshi had settled by morning. The night hour by hour, the upsets and the races still open.
In this article
Democrats won control of both the Senate and the House on Tuesday 3 November 2026, and the prediction markets saw it coming. Going into the night, Kalshi priced a Democratic Senate at 75% and a Democratic House at 93.3%. Polymarket was at 75.5% and 94.5%, RotoWire reported. Both chambers went the way the favourite said.
The scale of the Senate result was bigger than most traders expected. Democrats won Republican-held seats in Texas, North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Kansas, Iowa and South Carolina. In Texas, Democrats also took the governor's mansion. Here is how the night played out on the markets, where they were wrong, and what is still undecided.
The night in prices
Source: Kalshi market data, CONTROLS-2026-D and CONTROLH-2026-D, hourly candles
Show the dataHide the data
| Senate | House | |
|---|---|---|
| 5pm | 73% | 93.3% |
| 6pm | 75% | 93.3% |
| 7pm | 88% | 97.3% |
| 8pm | 90.7% | 97.9% |
| 9pm | 98.5% | 99.7% |
| 10pm | 99.3% | 99.5% |
| 11pm | 99.4% | 99.7% |
| 12am | 99.9% | 99.9% |
The decisive hour was the first one. Between 6 and 7 p.m. ET, as Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia closed, the Senate price jumped 13 points, from 75% to 88%. RotoWire measured Polymarket's move over the same hour at 15 points, to 90.5%.
By 9 p.m. ET the Senate market was above 98%. RotoWire reported that both platforms were above 99% on both chambers by about 10 p.m. Kalshi halted trading in its Senate control market at 11:46 p.m. ET and in the House market at 12:02 a.m. ET, once its rules for an early determination were met.
The Senate seats that flipped
| State | Winner | Defeated | Kalshi price for the winner, 6 p.m. ET |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | Roy Cooper (D) | Michael Whatley (R) | 97.7% |
| Texas | James Talarico (D) | Ken Paxton (R) | 75% |
| Ohio (special) | Sherrod Brown (D) | Jon Husted (R) | 72% |
| Maine | Troy Jackson (D) | Susan Collins (R) | 69% |
| Kansas | Adam Hamilton (D) | Roger Marshall (R) | 66% |
| Iowa | Josh Turek (D) | Ashley Hinson (R) | 49% |
| South Carolina | Annie Andrews (D) | Darline Graham (R) | 31% |
Sources: Kalshi market settlements and hourly candles; race calls as reported by NBC News, CBS News and RotoWire.
Democrats also held every seat they were defending that Kalshi had settled by Wednesday morning, including the open seat in Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed beat Mike Rogers, and Georgia, where Jon Ossoff won a second term.
Counting the seats not up this year, the settled races give Democrats and the independents who caucus with them at least 54 seats. Two races remain open (see below). Kalshi's market on the Democratic seat count, which pays out on 1 February 2027, priced "above 52" at 98.7% on Wednesday morning.
Texas turns blue
The single most traded race of the cycle went to the Democrat. NBC News projected that James Talarico defeated Attorney General Ken Paxton for the seat now held by Senator John Cornyn. On the same ballot, NBC projected that state Representative Gina Hinojosa defeated Governor Greg Abbott, who was seeking a fourth term. NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth also projected Democrat Vikki Goodwin beating Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and Nathan Johnson as the next attorney general.
The two Texas races were the two biggest markets of the midterms on Kalshi: about 187 million contracts traded on the Senate race and about 106 million on the governor's race. Talarico went into the night as a 75% favourite. Hinojosa did not. At 6 p.m. ET Kalshi gave her 34%.
Governors: five pickups for Democrats
The governors' races followed the Senate. Kalshi's settled markets show Democrats taking five governorships held by Republicans going into the election.
| State | Winner | Defeated | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | Gina Hinojosa (D) | Greg Abbott (R) | Incumbent defeated |
| Georgia | Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) | Rick Jackson (R) | Open seat, Republican-held |
| Nevada | Aaron Ford (D) | Joe Lombardo (R) | Incumbent defeated |
| Ohio | Amy Acton (D) | Vivek Ramaswamy (R) | Open seat, Republican-held |
| Iowa | Rob Sand (D) | Zach Lahn (R) | Open seat, Republican-held |
Sources: Kalshi market settlements; Texas call as reported by NBC News.
Democrats also held Arizona (Katie Hobbs), Michigan (Jocelyn Benson), Wisconsin (David Crowley), Pennsylvania (Josh Shapiro), New York (Kathy Hochul) and Minnesota (Amy Klobuchar). Republicans held Florida, where Byron Donalds beat David Jolly, as well as Vermont, Tennessee, Alabama and the other safe Republican states.
Nevada was the slowest of the big governor's races to settle on Kalshi: its market closed about seven hours after the state's polls did, as the count went on overnight.
The three upsets
RotoWire counted three races where the markets' favourite lost. All three went to the Democrat, which says something about the night: every surprise ran in the same direction.
South Carolina Senate. CBS News projected that Annie Andrews, a 45-year-old pediatrician, defeated Senator Darline Graham. Graham, 62, was appointed to the seat after her brother, Senator Lindsey Graham, died in July, and then won a special primary. CBS noted that South Carolina had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1998 and that Donald Trump carried the state by 18 points in 2024. Kalshi gave Andrews 31% at 6 p.m. ET, an hour before South Carolina's polls closed. That made it the biggest Senate upset of the night by price.
Iowa Senate. Josh Turek beat Ashley Hinson. This was barely an upset: Turek was at 49% on Kalshi at 6 p.m. ET, a coin flip that landed his way.
Texas governor. Gina Hinojosa's win over Abbott, at 34% on Kalshi, was the night's biggest surprise among the governor's races.
Source: Kalshi market data, hourly candles
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| Value | |
|---|---|
| South Carolina Senate: Andrews | 31% |
| Texas governor: Hinojosa | 34% |
| Iowa Senate: Turek | 49% |
How accurate were the markets?
On the headline questions, both platforms were right. RotoWire's analysis put Kalshi's Brier score at 0.0625 on the Senate and 0.0045 on the House, against 0.0600 and 0.0030 for Polymarket. Lower is better; Polymarket did slightly better on both, by margins RotoWire described as small.
Across all the races Kalshi had settled by 6 a.m. ET on Wednesday, RotoWire found that the favourite won 479 of 487, or 98%:
| Race type | Favourite won |
|---|---|
| House | 356 of 360 |
| Senate | 32 of 33 |
| Governor | 33 of 34 |
| Attorney general | 26 of 27 |
| Lieutenant governor | 9 of 10 |
| Secretary of state | 23 of 23 |
Source: RotoWire, 4 November 2026.
That figure flatters the markets a little, because most races are not competitive. A House seat priced at 99% is not much of a test. The more useful measure is how well prices matched outcomes in the close races. We will publish our own scorecard of the 2026 midterm markets, race by race, once more races have settled.
How quickly the markets knew
The prices moved well ahead of the official calls. In the competitive races, the winner's price on Kalshi typically reached 95% within about an hour of the state's last polls closing. Kalshi halted trading in those markets a median of about 3.7 hours after the polls closed, once enough media organisations had projected a winner.
Safe races settled faster: New Hampshire's Senate market closed about half an hour after the state's polls, Georgia's Senate market within the first hour. Michigan's open Senate seat took more than five hours, Nevada's governor's race about seven. Our research on how fast the markets called each race has the full numbers.
What the platforms said
Polymarket founder and chief executive Shayne Coplan said on the "All In" podcast that "prediction markets got it right." Kalshi's director of politics, Ben Freeman, said: "Kalshi traders saw the blue wave coming before anyone else did."
RotoWire reported that Kalshi's 2026 midterm markets had passed $2.5 billion in volume, against $1.3 billion for the whole 2024 election cycle.
The result also raises questions for the industry. A Democratic Congress could take up legislation on prediction markets, and New York has sued both Kalshi and Polymarket. RotoWire quoted Citizens analyst Jordan Bender as saying any bill would need the President's signature, "which we view as unlikely."
The House
The House result was never really in doubt once the first results came in. Kalshi's market on the number of Democratic seats priced "above 249" at about 98% on Wednesday morning. Democrats won 215 seats in 2024, so that implies a gain of at least 35 seats once all races are counted. Many House races in California and other states that count slowly will take days or weeks to call, but the majority itself was settled on the night: Kalshi's House control market closed just after midnight ET.
Still open
Two Senate races had not been settled on Kalshi by Wednesday morning:
- Mississippi: Scott Colom (D) leads Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) in a race too close to call. Kalshi priced Colom at about 84% at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, up from 13% before the polls closed.
- Alaska: Kalshi gave the Democratic candidate about 88% against Senator Dan Sullivan at the same time. Alaska counts mailed ballots for days after the election.
Both markets stay open until a consensus of media organisations projects a winner. If Democrats win both, they would reach 56 seats, their largest Senate majority in more than a decade. Our 2026 elections hub tracks them live.
Kalshi's market rules for both races wait for a consensus of media calls, so neither will pay out until the counts are much further along.
For how the markets looked going in, see our coverage of Election Day trading and the eve of the vote.
FAQ
Who won the Senate in 2026? Democrats, with at least 54 seats including independents who caucus with them; two races were still open on 4 November.
Who won the House? Democrats. Kalshi's seat-count market priced "above 249 Democratic seats" at about 98% on Wednesday morning.
Did the prediction markets get it right? On both chambers, yes. The three races where the favourite lost were South Carolina's Senate race, Iowa's Senate race and the Texas governor's race.
Which platform was more accurate? Polymarket, slightly, on RotoWire's measure for the two chamber markets.
Prices from Kalshi's public market data. Race calls as reported by NBC News, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth and CBS News; platform statements and accuracy figures as reported by RotoWire on 4 November 2026. Not investment advice.
