CBS announced that its midterm coverage would include CBS News polling and integrated data from Kalshi, its prediction market sponsor. The post offered a look at how traders are pricing race outcomes, then added that voters still decide the election. Anthony Salvanto, CBS News director of elections and surveys, carried that pairing onto the air.
During a segment on The Takeout with Major Garrett, Anthony Salvanto, CBS News director of elections and surveys, set the network’s House and Senate polling next to a graphic labeled “Kalshi prediction market odds.” He said polls let people express how they feel, while the markets show what traders think may happen. Together, he said, the two views form a larger picture. The segment is on the CBS News YouTube channel.
How the prediction market sponsor deal shows up on air
The announcement wasn’t just a studio graphic. CBS Mornings posted the sponsor language on X, and Salvanto then walked through the numbers in more than one segment.
The network’s video page uses the same framing. CBS News says it is using Kalshi as its prediction market sponsor and integrating the market data to evaluate what traders are seeing in the 2026 midterms. The wording keeps the focus on trader pricing, not on any claim that the price is the result.
Still, a sponsor label changes the graphic’s tone. Viewers are used to network polls the newsroom controls or co-sponsors. They are less used to a paid prediction market partner’s prices in the same election block. CBS repeatedly mentions voters decide it all. Whether the lower-third makes that hierarchy obvious every time the odds appear is an open question.
What Kalshi midterm election odds showed as the segments aired
Coverage of the rollout cited a tight set of prices. The CBS presentation said Kalshi figures assigned Democrats a 63% chance of Senate control and a 91% chance of holding the House. Those are trader prices at the time of the write-up, not a CBS forecast, and they can move before the next commercial break; unlike weekly polls, the event markets change by the minute.
They also cited two Senate contracts with heavy turnover. The race between Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton had generated more than $16.4 million in trading volume, with Talarico at 62%. The market involving incumbent Susan Collins and challenger Troy Jackson showed more than $10.9 million in volume and a 59% price for Jackson. Kalshi’s own midterm page later showed similar leadership, with Talarico near 63% and Jackson near 60%, and Democratic Senate control near 62%.
Market prices can update faster than surveys. But a few large orders, a news cycle, or people trading a combo rather than a single race can also push it.
Meanwhile, Kalshi’s newsroom also produces independent content and has been writing on the same races as markets move. On September 30, its site said Paxton’s price fell from 41% to 38% after audio in which he suggested a Republican midterm convention hurt GOP polling numbers, leaving Talarico at 62%. A few days earlier, that desk showed Talarico at 58% and Paxton at 42%, alongside Marist, Emerson, and Texas A&M surveys that did not all agree.
Why the dual display is a different on-screen test
CBS already runs a Battleground Tracker for 2026, and the Kalshi feed is meant to supplement it. Polls arrive in incremental waves. Contracts trade constantly through the day. But that speed helps only if the market is deep. A thin contract can jump on a small order and look like a shift in the race. The Senate-control and featured race contracts cited in the rollout were not thin on the published numbers. Even so, a 63% Senate price is not interchangeable with a poll’s margin of error. One is a traded probability. The other is a surveying sample with a disclosed method.
CBS is also not Kalshi’s first newsroom partner. Kalshi had deals with CNN and CNBC in late 2025, then an agreement with the Associated Press earlier in 2026. Fox News as well, for a period. Contract prices are moving from finance desks into election blocks that millions of people now treat as the official picture of the race.
The actual 2026 midterm results will be the real test. If the prices on screen and the votes line up, the sponsor graphic will look shrewd. If they miss, the network will have to explain why it relied on prediction market data to inform viewers, especially given the likely financial component to the relationship.
Pushback on prediction market news partnerships
CBS Sports has also run affiliate links tied to Kalshi promo codes around NFL games. Election coverage and a trading bonus are different products. Seeing both under the CBS name draws enhanced scrutiny.
Jonathan Reiss, co-founder of the Media and Democracy Project, made a sharper case in an April op-ed at The Intercept. He wrote that predictions crowd out coverage of substance, and that in politics that means less information to help voters evaluate candidates. Focusing on the odds, he argued, gives the impression that the horse race matters more than the issues. That may be more personal opinion than a fact-based argument, since much of this is new and this is the first election cycle where prediction market prices are front and center.
Prediction market accuracy in predicting midterm outcomes will likely have a significant impact on integrating event-market odds into mainstream news outlets. If they prove to be sharp forecasts, many other tangential concerns will likely be overlooked.
References
- CBS Mornings post on Kalshi as prediction market sponsor
- CBS News video: Here’s what Kalshi’s prediction markets think will happen in the 2026 midterms
- CBS News video page for the Salvanto midterm segment
- Crypto Briefing: CBS News partners with Kalshi for 2026 midterm coverage
- SCCG Management: CBS News partners with Kalshi for midterm coverage
- Truthout: CBS touts using data from Kalshi in election coverage
- Kalshi 2026 midterms forecasts
- Kalshi: Paxton price pulls back after audio leak
- Kalshi: Talarico-Paxton Senate prices
- The Intercept: Jonathan Reiss on prediction-market news partnerships
