Kalshi Partners with CBS News to Provide Midterm Election Odds
Kalshi announced a partnership with CBS News to integrate prediction market data into the network's midterm election coverage. The announcement included a video clip from the morning program but did not disclose revenue sharing, exclusivity terms, or appearance frequency.
This marks the first time a mainstream television network has directly embedded real-money odds into election coverage. CNN has already collaborated with Kalshi on data, stipulating that its newsroom cannot trade prediction contracts. CBS News reported on Kalshi's midterm election hub in July, which aligns odds, polls, fundraising, and historical data side by side. Co-founder Tarek Mansour stated that the market "doesn't care about rhetoric or party affiliation." CBS has also partnered with VoteHub to provide average polling data, models, and maps for use on data platforms and election night. This time, prediction markets have elevated from being reported subjects to becoming data sources on screen.
The odds themselves are heavily skewed towards the Democratic Party. The House control contract shows Democrats at about 91% to 92%, Republicans at about 8% to 9%, with over $38 million traded on Kalshi for this contract; Senate control shows Democrats at about 62% to 63%, with over $37.5 million traded on Kalshi. CNN reports that the total trading volume for Kalshi and Polymarket for the 2026 election exceeds $750 million. Kalshi claims that about 90% of the U.S. candidates favored by its market have ultimately won since 2024. There are about five weeks until the voting day on November 3.
The platform lists nearly every House and Senate race, gubernatorial race, endorsements, and even contracts for "whether the election will occur as scheduled." Campaign teams are refreshing the prices almost hourly. Election tracking sites like 270toWin have integrated Kalshi prices, updating every 15 minutes. State attorneys general are still suing prediction markets as unlicensed gambling, while the CFTC asserts federal jurisdiction over designated contract markets.
Funding comes from polling subscriptions and campaign advertising budgets, adding a tradable probability stream. Buyers are news networks looking to turn "who controls Congress" into televised graphics, while sellers are licensed exchanges that charge fees for event contracts. Events are driven by viewership competition in the five weeks leading up to the election. Beneficiaries include Kalshi, which needs authoritative screen endorsements, and CBS, which requires real-time data to fill in graphics; pressured parties include traditional models that only sell average polling data and regulators who have taken the same sports and election odds to state courts. The percentages on screen come from order books with real money flowing in and out, not from newsroom votes.
Source: Public Information
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After Tarek Mansour and others established Kalshi as a CFTC-designated contract market, they first secured data collaboration with CNN, then penetrated CBS's morning and midterm coverage. In July, they built their own election hub, and in September, they provided prices to national television networks. The strategy is not to buy advertising slots but to turn the phrase "the market thinks" spoken by anchors into real-time outputs from the company's order book. The newsroom's trading ban serves as a firewall and is a necessary condition for translating odds from gambling language into financial language.
Capital follows the camera. The House control single contract has exceeded $38 million, and Senate control has surpassed $37.5 million, with the total election trading volume across both platforms exceeding $750 million. Money flows from traders' margins into fees, which are then exchanged for data licensing and brand exposure on television networks. The motivation is to lock in the "financial market" identity during the peak of state litigation: numbers that can appear on CBS evening graphics are closer to federal preemption narratives than state gambling licenses. Resource mobilization involves spreading contract types across every House race and every endorsement, allowing campaign managers to refresh prices at a frequency close to polling updates.
This mirrors the 1960s when television networks turned sample polls into horse race graphics, FiveThirtyEight made models into nighttime shows, and sportsbooks sponsored sports commentary. Prediction markets are in an expansion phase, embedding order books into traditional election toolbars, with control mechanisms being licensed identities and internal trading bans, rather than first winning a New York license. Polymarket is pursuing international operations alongside U.S. licensed entities, while Kalshi is leveraging federal exchanges and television network interfaces, both vying for the title of "first prediction market midterm election."
The essence is a transfer of pricing power. The interpretation of election dynamics shifts from sampling errors and weighted models to continuous odds backed by real funds. The mechanism is that television requires numbers that can be refreshed every minute, which polls cannot provide, but order books can; once national news presents 91% as a graphic, the odds transition from underground probabilities to public expectations, inversely constraining campaign narratives. Regulators can continue to debate whether this is futures or gambling, but the camera has already broadcast the price as fact.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Odds that make it to the evening news are no longer just odds.
Polls provide ranges, while order books provide numbers every minute.
Banning internal trading is meant to frame gambling as finance.