Press note
Polymarket 2026 midterm scorecard: 13,186 contracts frozen before the vote
79.3%Races where the favourite already trades at 90¢ or more
402 of the 507 Senate, House and governor races with a two-sided quote at the freeze, 17 October 2026, 03:34 UTC.
Every Polymarket contract about the 2026 US midterms, frozen on 17 October: 13,186 contracts in 1,352 events, a hashed manifest, two price checkpoints and a Brier rule declared before the vote. In 402 of 507 races the favourite already trades at 90¢ or more. At the freeze, 402 of 507 Senate, House and governor races had a favourite priced at 90¢ or more, 332 at 95¢ or more, and only 10 below 60¢. Each race is counted once by its highest-priced contract, read as the midpoint of the best bid and ask in Polymarket's public catalogue at 03:34 UTC on 17 October 2026. That is the shape the scorecard has to be honest about. Most contracts are near-certain and will score well whatever happens; the test is in the 105 races priced under 90¢ and in how often the favourites in each price band actually won.
Observed 2026-10-17, population: 507 races.
Supporting figures
- 13,186 — Contracts in the frozen manifestIn 1,352 Polymarket events: 4,552 race-winner and chamber-control contracts, 7,254 other election-outcome contracts, 1,380 listed but not scored.
- 2 Nov, 23:59 UTC — Primary price checkpointOrder-book midpoints captured hourly from 25 October.
- 5b607bde — Manifest SHA-256, first eight charactersFull hash in the downloads. Nothing enters version 1 after the freeze; later listings go to a separately versioned supplement.
Images
Share card, 1200×630 — the headline figure and the title, rendered. Credit Vultax Research.
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Links
- The study
- Full text, sources and method
- Markdown edition
- Plain text for quoting and for assistants
- Chart figures (CSV)
- The numbers behind the headline chart
- All datasets (JSON)
- Every published table and chart, with units and sources
- Watch the 2026 midterm markets live
- Senate, House and governor races priced live on Polymarket. The frozen scorecard is separate from current quotes.
Press contact
Vultax Research — [email protected]
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How to cite
Vultax Research, Polymarket 2026 midterm scorecard: 13,186 contracts frozen before the vote, 2026-10-17, https://vultax.com/research/midterm-scorecard-2026
Published 2026-10-17. Figures are the published study; live screens move. Plain-text version, Use our data