Prediction markets: “Odds of Democrats controlling both chambers top 60%”

[Financial News]  

Prediction markets see Democrats as far more likely than Republicans to control both chambers after the upcoming U.S. midterm elections on November 3 (local time). The odds of Democrats winning the election topped 60% on both Kalshi and Polymarket, while the odds of Republicans winning both chambers were below 10% on Kalshi.
CNBC reports that Kalshi is forecasting a decisive Democratic victory. It puts the odds of Democrats controlling both chambers at 63%, and those odds have remained steady this month.
By contrast, the odds that Republicans will hold on to both the Senate and the House are below 10%. The odds that they will lose the House to Democrats but successfully defend the Senate are also low, at 29%.
Another prediction market, Polymarket, puts the odds of Democrats retaking both chambers at 65%.
At the start of the year, those odds were only around 30%. But the situation changed as the Iran war, launched by President Donald Trump on February 28, dragged on contrary to expectations of a quick and decisive outcome, sending oil prices soaring.
The odds of Democrats controlling both chambers surged to around 50% in early September, then continued to rise, staying above 60% this month.
Prediction market forecasts do not always prove accurate, however.
Prediction markets had forecast a win for Flavio Bolsonaro, a candidate and right-wing senator whose father is former President Jair Bolsonaro, known as the “Trump of South America,” right up until just before polls closed in Brazil’s presidential election on the 25th. The election, however, produced an upset as the left united behind President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won a fourth term.
There were also cases in this year’s Democratic primaries where prediction markets forecast a particular candidate would win by a landslide, but the candidate actually prevailed by a narrow margin.
Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson argued that opinion polls were distorting reality.
Appearing on Fox News on the 26th, he said, “I’ve traveled all across the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast,” and stressed, “Polls are inaccurate, and I say that plainly.”

[email protected] Song Kyung-jae Reporter