Senate Prediction Map: Week 3 Analysis

In the last two weeks, there have been noticeable changes in the Kalshi probabilities for key states. By toggling on "Change from Feb 7" on our Senate Prediction map, you'll be able to see the shift in probabilities for various states in the midterm Senate elections.

The most noticeable differences from last week are in Texas, Nebraska and Ohio. Many of the other large changes you see were covered last week, so check out our previous article for more information on that. Texas is a key state that Democrats must flip if they want to win a majority, and with the primary gearing up it seems like a Texas win is becoming more and more likely.

Good news for Republicans:

Republicans didn't see many huge gains since last week, and it appears that most of the wins went to Democrats, but there is some good news for the Republican party. Republicans didn't see much of a change in Alaska, which is close to 50/50 odds and is absolutely necessary for retaining their majority. They also haven't seen any massive flips towards Democrats in the prediction markets for almost all of the states they are currently favored to win. 

Republicans have also maintained their lead in Iowa. The goal for Republicans is to make sure that they have a strong hold on as many states as possible, and they will certainly have to hold on to at least two of the toss up states that are leaning red in order to do so.

Good news for Democrats:

This week was especially good for Democrats. Nebraska shifted by around 6% in their favor, as Dan Osborn continues to keep the race close to tied in most polls against Republican Pete Ricketts. The state isn't really a toss up and will likely go red in the general election, but if Osborn keeps up his populist campaign that combines fiscal liberalism with cultural conservatism, he has a good chance of winning. 

The biggest news this week electorally has been the Texas Democratic primary. Talarico had a bit of a black swan event, in which the FCC allegedly told CBS to pull an interview with him and Stephen Colbert off the air. This completely backfired, and led to the video on Youtube getting over 8.7 million views in 5 days (as of the writing of this article) and Talarico raising 2.5 million dollars in just 24 hours.

Talarico is the more electable candidate (we've written about this in the past--you can check out our article here) and his chance of winning has increased by nearly 20 points on Polymarket. This has led to a probability boost for the Democrats, but Dems have also had strong early voting numbers in Texas compared to Republicans. The gap between Republicans and Democrats is big, and still growing. As of today, Democrats have 544,894 early votes(+132,723 since yesterday) and Republicans have 440,996 (+75,936 since yesterday). The Democratic primary is more competitive and will have a greater impact than the Republican one, but this news should still worry Republicans. Texas has seen a 6.5% increase for a Democratic win in the past week.

Takeaways:

Although this week wasn't extremely eventful outside of Texas, the change in probabilities mostly favored Democrats. Next week, we’ll have a much better idea of where the Texas primary is headed, and there will be more polls for other Democratic and Republican primaries across the country. 

Dems have seen a noticeable boost in senate control (roughly 3%) likely coming off the back of Texas primary results and early voting, as well as Democratic wins across the country.