Prediction Markets Bet $1.9 Billion on Midterms as Crypto Waits on Congress

November 4, 2026 MM Crypto Team

Traders on the two largest prediction market platforms poured a record sum into contracts tied to the United States midterm elections, turning the battle for control of Congress into one of the biggest wagering events the young prediction market industry has ever seen. According to an analysis by The Washington Post cited by Cointelegraph, nearly $1.9 billion in election-related contracts had traded on Kalshi and Polymarket as of Monday, November 2, a record for a midterm cycle. The figure spans thousands of contracts, from control of each chamber to individual Senate and House races.

The timing matters for the digital asset industry as much as for politics. As Americans headed to the polls on Tuesday, November 3, traders were pricing the future of crypto regulation in Washington, because the party that controls the House and the Senate will decide whether long-awaited market structure legislation ever reaches the president’s desk. A Congress that cannot agree on digital asset rules leaves exchanges and token issuers operating under agency guidance and court decisions, and that uncertainty carries real costs for businesses deciding where to build.

A record midterm for Kalshi Polymarket midterm odds

The scale of trading is striking against earlier cycles. The Washington Post analysis found Kalshi accounted for roughly $1.3 billion of the total and Polymarket about $600 million, across more than 7,000 different outcomes. Traders were not confined to one question about which party would win Congress. They could take positions on individual races, margins, specific states and downstream economic consequences, creating a dense web of prices that journalists and analysts increasingly quote alongside traditional polls.

A Democratic sweep priced near 75 percent

As of 4:30 pm UTC on November 3, Cointelegraph reported, traders on Kalshi priced a Democratic sweep of both chambers at 75 percent, with Polymarket at 75.5 percent. That headline drew much of the attention, but it is only part of the picture, and understanding what it does and does not say is essential for anyone reading midterm prediction markets crypto coverage.

A sweep price is a single contract on a combined outcome: Democrats winning the House and the Senate together. It is not an average of the two chamber prices. The separate chamber markets told a more lopsided story. Kalshi traders gave Democrats a 93 percent chance of taking the House and a 75 percent chance of winning the Senate, while Polymarket priced those outcomes at 94.5 percent and 75.5 percent respectively. The House looked close to settled in traders’ eyes, while the Senate remained the genuinely contested prize, and the sweep price, sitting near the Senate figure, reflected the fact that the combined outcome is only as likely as its harder leg. That distinction matters because conflating the numbers exaggerates certainty: a 75 percent sweep price still leaves a one-in-four chance, in traders’ pricing, that at least one chamber stays out of Democratic hands. Kalshi chief executive Tarek Mansour reportedly cautioned, according to CNBC, that a 5 percent probability does not mean an outcome will not happen. The warning was sharpened by a recent miss elsewhere: markets had favoured Flavio Bolsonaro at roughly 80 percent the day before incumbent president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s presidential runoff.

Why Ohio and Maine matter for crypto

Individual races carried direct consequences for the crypto industry’s legislative hopes. In Ohio, the Senate race drew heavy spending from the crypto-aligned super PAC network Fairshake. Its affiliate Defend American Jobs allocated 54 percent of its total expenses to the state, according to Cointelegraph, spending $36.9 million supporting Senator Jon Husted and $19.7 million opposing Democrat Sherrod Brown, a long-standing crypto critic. Fairshake had already spent $40 million helping to unseat Brown in 2024, making Ohio the industry’s most expensive battleground.

Yet the spending may not deliver the result the industry wanted. Kalshi traders gave Brown a 72 percent chance of winning, with Polymarket at 72.5 percent, broadly in line with a final New York Times and Siena poll that had him ahead 49 percent to 44 percent. A Brown victory could complicate the industry’s agenda, particularly if Democrats regain the Senate, because analysts have identified him as a potential chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Committee chairs set hearing agendas and decide which bills move, so a sceptic in that seat would be a significant obstacle.

Maine offered the mirror image. Republican Senator Susan Collins was one of four Republicans who voted against advancing the CLARITY Act in September, stalling the bill. Kalshi gave Democrat Troy Jackson a 71 percent chance of unseating her, with Polymarket at 71.5 percent, broadly in line with October polling that had Jackson ahead by two points. Advocacy group Stand With Crypto rates Jackson as strongly supportive of crypto, so his victory could give the industry another ally in a chamber where every vote on cloture counts.

Thin liquidity behind the headline prices

For all the record volume, researchers warned that prices rested on thinner foundations than the headline totals suggest. Talos head of research Kelly Ye told Cointelegraph that as of 11:30 am Eastern Time on Election Day, just $300,000 of selling would have pushed Kalshi’s Democrats-win-Senate contract down ten points. The median trade was around $10, with a few large trades making up most of the liquidity. In other words, the $1.9 billion figure measures turnover, the repeated trading of contracts, rather than cash sitting behind prices at any moment.

What a new Congress means for the CLARITY Act Senate fight

The reason crypto traders care so deeply about chamber control is the CLARITY Act Senate impasse. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act would draw the central jurisdictional line American crypto has lacked: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would oversee digital commodities and their spot markets, while the Securities and Exchange Commission would oversee digital securities. The House passed the bill 294 to 134 in July 2025, a bipartisan margin suggesting momentum. But on September 15, 2026, a Senate cloture vote on the motion to proceed failed 49 to 50, short of the 60 votes needed even to begin debate, and the bill has stalled since.

The sticking points explain why party control alone does not guarantee passage. Reporting on the failed vote points to disputes over ethics provisions on federal officials’ crypto holdings, over stablecoin yield, with banks concerned that yield-bearing stablecoins could draw deposits away from them, and over developer liability for non-custodial software. Senator Thom Tillis voted against cloture so he could file a motion to reconsider, keeping a procedural path open. But with the Senate not scheduled to resume legislative business until November 9, the new Congress inherits the same unresolved fights, and its composition will determine whether a revised compromise can find 60 votes. Without statute, regulators have tried to fill the gap, including a joint SEC and CFTC interpretation in March 2026 sorting crypto assets into categories, but agency action can be reversed by a future administration in a way statute cannot.

Voters remain sceptical even as traders bet big

There is an irony at the heart of the record trading: while prediction market traders bet billions on the political outcome, ordinary voters remain deeply sceptical of crypto itself. A CoinDesk-commissioned survey of 1,000 registered voters, conducted in April 2026, found that of the 849 respondents who answered a question about their view of the industry, 533 held a less favourable view and only 316 a more favourable one. Scepticism was sharpest among Democratic-leaning voters, with 233 less favourable against 88 more positive, while Republican voters were nearly split at 212 less favourable to 178 more favourable. Respondents cited risk, insufficient regulation, doubts that crypto is real money, and a sense it may be a passing fad. Only 1 percent named crypto as their top election concern.

For crypto holders, the lesson is measured rather than dramatic. The election will shape committee chairs, the legislative calendar and negotiating dynamics around the CLARITY Act, but it will not by itself settle crypto’s legal status. Prices on Kalshi and Polymarket offered a real-time, real-money read on what traders expected, and the record $1.9 billion of trading showed how seriously markets take that signal. Whether those prices prove prescient will be judged when results are counted, and whether Congress then acts will be judged over the months that follow, when the hard work of finding 60 Senate votes begins again.

Frequently asked questions

What does a 75 percent sweep price actually mean?

It means traders priced a Democratic win in both chambers at 75 percent on Kalshi and 75.5 percent on Polymarket as of 4:30 pm UTC on November 3. It is one combined contract, not an average of chamber odds, and it still leaves roughly a one-in-four chance that at least one chamber goes the other way.

Why are the House and Senate odds so different?

They are separate contracts. Kalshi gave Democrats 93 percent in the House but 75 percent in the Senate, with Polymarket at 94.5 percent and 75.5 percent. The House looked close to decided, the Senate was contested, and the sweep price tracked the harder Senate leg.

How does Congress’s makeup affect crypto regulation?

Control determines committee chairs, the calendar and whether bills like the CLARITY Act can reach 60 Senate votes. The bill would split oversight between the CFTC for digital commodities and the SEC for digital securities, and its cloture vote failed 49 to 50 on September 15, 2026.

Are prediction markets more accurate than polls?

They are a different signal, based on real money rather than survey answers, and across many contracts prices have broadly tracked outcomes. But thin liquidity can move them sharply, and they have missed big results, including Brazil’s 2026 runoff, so they should be read alongside polls, not as a replacement.

Source: Cointelegraph

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