CBS News partners with Kalshi for 2026 midterm coverage

CBS News is bringing a trading floor into its election night studio, figuratively speaking. On September 30, 2026, the network announced a partnership with Kalshi, a prediction market platform regulated by the CFTC. Kalshi will supply real-time event contract pricing for CBS News’ coverage of the 2026 midterm elections. Viewers will now see market-based probabilities for election outcomes alongside traditional polling data. What CBS and Kalshi are actually doing The core of the deal is data integration. CBS plans to fold pricing from Kalshi’s event contracts directly into its midterm reporting. Event contracts are financial instruments tied to whether a specific outcome happens. Traders buy and sell positions on questions like which party wins a given race. The trading price reflects how likely the crowd thinks that outcome is. CBS is not abandoning its own numbers. The network maintains its Battleground Tracker polling operation for 2026, which has been central to how it measures voter sentiment. Kalshi’s data is meant to supplement that tracker, not replace it. That timing gap matters. Polls are snapshots taken periodically. Markets trade continuously, so their prices can react t...