The people who rate Senate races for a living still call Ohio a coin flip. The Cook Political Report, Inside Elections and Sabato's Crystal Ball all have Sherrod Brown vs. Jon Husted in the toss-up column.
The market stopped calling it a coin flip weeks ago. At 9:22 p.m. ET Sunday, Oct. 25, Kalshi had Brown at 68¢ and Husted at 33¢, roughly two-to-one. Of the three Senate races all three raters call a toss-up, none has a wider gap between the ratings and the price.
That gap is what Dane Martinez went looking for on The 7 Oracles live on Oct. 21, and Ohio is where he stopped. Here's the five-minute cut:
▶ Watch on its own page, with the full transcript →
What's in the clip
| Chapter | ||
|---|---|---|
| 0:00 | Two weeks out: the Senate simulation | watch → |
| 0:21 | The Markets vs. Pundits board | watch → |
| 0:27 | The premise: 2024 and the seven swing states | watch → |
| 1:07 | Why polls and ratings lag the market | watch → |
| 1:29 | North Carolina and Georgia: big gaps, nothing to buy | watch → |
| 1:50 | Dane's filter: a toss-up rating, a 60¢ market | watch → |
| 2:04 | Ohio: toss-up vs. 64¢ | watch → |
| 3:01 | Brown's price chart since March | watch → |
| 4:24 | Money moving between races, and the call | watch → |
| 5:07 | Why the board beats waiting for the next poll | watch → |
Polls, ratings and the price run on three clocks
Ohio's Senate race is a special election for the seat JD Vance left to become vice president. Jon Husted, the Republican appointed to it in 2025, faces Sherrod Brown, who lost Ohio's other Senate seat to Bernie Moreno in 2024. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Here's how each kind of forecast reads the race right now:
| Source | Reads Ohio as | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Kalshi | Brown 68¢ · Husted 33¢ | 9:22 p.m. ET Oct. 25 |
| Cook Political Report | Toss-up | Oct. 20 |
| Inside Elections | Toss-up | Oct. 15 |
| Sabato's Crystal Ball | Toss-up | June 11 |
| October polls (below) | Brown ahead in 5 of 6, by about 3 points on average | Oct. 6–22 |
And the October polls, newest first:
| Poll | Fielded | Voters (margin of error) | Brown | Husted | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VoteHub / Verasight | Oct. 1–20 | likely (±4.2) | 47% | 44% | Brown +3 |
| Fox News | Oct. 15–19 | 1,592 likely (±2) | 52% | 47% | Brown +5 |
| Marist | Oct. 15–18 | likely (±4.5) | 48% | 44% | Brown +4 |
| Rasmussen Reports | Oct. 12–14 | 901 likely (±3) | 47% | 49% | Husted +2 |
| CNN | released Oct. 8 | likely (±4.5) | 49% | 43% | Brown +6 |
| YouGov | released Oct. 6 | likely (±2.5) | 49% | 45% | Brown +4 |
That's the whole disagreement in two tables. Brown leads five of the six, by 3 to 6 points, and the average across all six is about Brown +3, inside most of those margins of error. A lead that size is what the raters call a toss-up, and none of them has moved Ohio off it. Sabato's rating hasn't changed since June 11. Kalshi prices the same evidence at roughly two-to-one.
Dane's point on air was about clocks, not candidates. Polls and forecasts, he said, are "like eight-tracks to your Discman, to your streaming service, to your Spotify," while "the markets are 24/7." A rating changes in steps, when a rater is confident enough to move a label. A price changes every time someone trades.
Not every poll agrees. Rasmussen's Oct. 12–14 survey of 901 likely voters is the one October poll here with Husted in front.
Dane's call, and what the price did next
On the Oct. 21 show, the board had Brown at 64¢ against three toss-up ratings, a 14-point gap. Dane's read was that the next poll would catch up to the market before the market fell back to the ratings.
"Before another poll comes out, and all of a sudden the poll matches these markets, go ahead and get you a piece of Brown to win the Ohio Senate race," he said, before the 65¢ contract "turns to be 70%, 75%."
Fox News (Brown 52–47 among likely voters) published that evening and VoteHub / Verasight (47–44) the next day. By Friday morning, Oct. 23, Kalshi had Brown at 70¢. On Sunday night he was 68¢. The ratings still say toss-up.
Dane was explicit that the call is about the price, not the party: "I don't care, Gene, about your politics. I don't care who you back. It doesn't matter to me. But when I see a trend line like this..." He also pointed to reports of the Republican Party moving money between races, and to talk of a "blue wave." Brown's daily closes since March, and the rest of that show, are in our Oracles Roundtable recap.
The toss-up filter, applied to the whole Senate map
Dane's rule is the part worth stealing. The biggest gaps on the board aren't the tradeable ones. North Carolina's Roy Cooper is 97¢ against Lean and Likely D ratings, and Georgia's Jon Ossoff is 94¢. "I know that you ain't going to trade something that's 96% anyway," Dane told Gene. What he hunts for is a race the forecasters still call a coin flip that the market already prices around 60¢ or better.
Here is every 2026 Senate race that at least one of the three raters calls a toss-up, at 9:22 p.m. ET Sunday, Oct. 25. The raters' column converts each rating to a probability the way our Markets vs. Pundits board does (toss-up 50%, lean 60%, likely 75%) and averages the three. The gap is the market's Democratic probability minus that average.
| Race | Kalshi favorite | Market: Dem wins | Cook · Inside Elections · Sabato | Raters (Dem) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | Democrat 76¢ | 76% | Toss-up · Toss-up · Lean D | 53% | +23 |
| Ohio | Brown (D) 68¢ | 67% | Toss-up · Toss-up · Toss-up | 50% | +17 |
| Texas | Talarico (D) 65¢ | 65% | Toss-up · Toss-up · Toss-up | 50% | +15 |
| Michigan | El-Sayed (D) 67¢ | 67% | Toss-up · Lean D · Lean D | 57% | +10 |
| Maine | Jackson (D) 61¢ | 59% | Toss-up · Toss-up · Toss-up | 50% | +9 |
| Iowa | Hinson (R) 59¢ | 42% | Toss-up · Lean R · Toss-up | 47% | −5 |
| Kansas | Marshall (R) 61¢ | 39% | Toss-up · Lean R · Toss-up | 47% | −8 |
"Market: Dem wins" is Kalshi's implied probability after both sides of the market are normalized, so it can sit a point or two off the favorite's price.
Five things stand out:
- Ohio, Texas and Maine are the cleanest version of Dane's filter. All three raters say toss-up, and Kalshi has a 61¢-to-68¢ favorite. Texas has run the same way as Ohio: Kalshi flipped from Ken Paxton to James Talarico between July and October, and our Texas breakdown makes the case that the polls have that race wrong.
- Alaska has the biggest gap on the list, but at 76¢ it's the move Dane described as already made. He expected Ohio to keep climbing until it "looks the same way that it looks in Alaska." The full read is in Peltola vs. Sullivan: markets vs. pundits.
- Michigan is the split decision. Cook says toss-up, Inside Elections and Sabato say Lean D, and Kalshi is past all three at 67%.
- Iowa and Kansas run the other way. The market is more confident in the Republican than the raters are. We asked whether Kalshi has Kansas wrong.
- Ohio is one of the seats that decides the chamber. In our 10,000-run Senate simulation (Oct. 17), Ohio, Michigan and Texas each moved Democratic control by about 12 points depending on which way they went.
What 68¢ asks you to believe
A Kalshi price is a probability with a cost attached. Brown's 68¢ ask comes to about 69.5¢ once Kalshi's fee at that price is added, so buying YES only pays over time if Brown wins more than about 69.5% of the time. Husted's 34¢ ask comes to about 35.6¢ all-in, so buying him needs a better-than-35.6% view. A 68¢ favorite still loses about one time in three.
Before you size anything, run your own number through the EV calculator, check the cost on the Kalshi fee calculator and convert prices with the probability converter. The Ohio race page has the live price, the chart and the ratings in one place.
What would change the read before Nov. 3
- A rating change. If Cook or Inside Elections moves Ohio to Lean D, the gap closes from the ratings side, which is the catch-up Dane's call depends on. Cook's ratings as of Oct. 20 still have Ohio a toss-up.
- The next polls. Five of six October polls have Brown ahead. A run of results like Rasmussen's would test the price.
- The price itself. Brown was 64¢ during the Oct. 21 show, 70¢ on Friday morning and 68¢ on Sunday night. The live number is on the Ohio race page.
- The track record. On the eve of the 2024 election, the markets had Trump favored in all seven battleground states while the polling averages had at least five as coin flips, and he won all seven (our state-by-state audit). Our markets vs. pundits review also found the markets beat the pundits at the top of the ticket in 2024 and lost to them down ballot. A Senate race is down ballot.
More on the 2026 midterms
- Markets vs. Pundits: every Senate race, the price next to the ratings, sorted by the gap
- 2026 Senate map: all 35 seats with live Kalshi prices
- Ohio governor: Amy Acton vs. Vivek Ramaswamy, the other marquee race on Ohio's ballot
- Kalshi vs. Cook, Sabato and Inside Elections over 10,000 simulated Senates
- Did prediction markets predict 2024? A state-by-state accuracy audit
- The midterms hub: House, Senate and governors in one place
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Trade the Ohio Senate market on Kalshi →
More from the collective on the Oracles hub. Kalshi prices were read at 9:22 p.m. ET Sunday, Oct. 25; poll figures are as each pollster published them. Prices move, and the linked boards are live. Trade responsibly.