Trading Texas: A Kalshi user’s Election Day trip to the Lone Star State

Last weekend, I traveled to Houston to get a better sense of the Texas Senate primaries from an on-the-ground perspective.

You can look at all the polls you want, read all the X posts and news articles you can, or number crunch historical results in all sorts of different ways. But ultimately, the voters of Texas are going to decide the outcome of this election, and I realized I hadn’t talked to any of them.

Is it a bit extreme to fly 8 hours round trip to gain an undefined edge for an election market? 

Well, after having a positive (and profitable) experience talking to voters for the TN-07 special election in December, I decided that it was worth trying it again.

^{For informational purposes only. Not trading advice. Please see full disclaimer below.}

On my flight to Houston, I documented my initial predictions for the race. My pre-trip forecasts were that both Texas State Representative James Talarico and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton were favored in their respective races, and that Talarico would win outright, while the Republican Senate primary race would go to a runoff. I thought that Senator John Cornyn was severely undervalued in the teens because I felt pretty confident the race was going to a runoff, and a Trump endorsement in the runoff (for either Cornyn or Paxton) was likely. 

Though I had conviction in these forecasts, the polling was all over the place (especially on the Democratic side), so I wanted to verify my assumptions. When I boarded my flight, Talarico was favored in the low 70s to be the nominee while Paxton was in the mid 80s.  

During my flight, I also saw that both Talarico and Representative Jasmine Crockett were hosting events on the eve of the election in Houston. Even though the events were back-to-back, and around 45 minutes away from each other with traffic, I knew that I had to go to both. I felt very fortunate that both candidates happened to be holding their last campaign events in Houston, given Texas is such a large state with many large metropolitan areas. 

The primary reason I chose Houston over Austin, Dallas, or San Antonio was admittedly because I had lived there, had friends there, and knew the area the best. But there were other compelling reasons for my choice.

Harris County is the most populous county in Texas, and is very diverse in many ways: racially, politically, and socioeconomically. I could get a fairly representative sample of the Texas voting electorate in Harris County.

My first stop was “New Faith Church,” a predominantly Black church in Central Southwest Houston, where Crockett was holding her final campaign stop. The event also featured Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Congressman Raúl Grijalva, and Congressman Menefee.

It was framed as a “Community Conversation,” not a rally, which was typical of Crockett’s campaign events. My research before the trip indicated Crockett was holding smaller events, while Talarico tended to hold larger rallies.

A predominantly Black church made sense for Crockett’s final campaign stop as her audience represented her core political base; high Black turnout was critical for her victory in the Texas Senate primary. I sat in a pew in the back of the church, as I didn’t want to disturb anyone, and wanted to be as respectful as possible. “Jesus Loves Me” was playing over the speakers as people waited for Crockett to come on stage. Forty minutes after the event was scheduled to start at 6 PM CT, Crockett came on stage with her guests. 

The event started with a prayer and began with the guests speaking for a while. One speaker emphasized that it felt good to introduce the guests as “congresswoman” (because there were not many women in government), another speaker spent a while remembering Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D) who passed away in 2024, and another older woman talked about how it was important to use “social media and Google” to make sure that Crockett’s supporters get to the polls tomorrow. 

While the event itself was intimate and moving, it did not give off the energy of a winning campaign. A Talarico +13 poll had just been released before Crockett got on stage, and it just felt like she didn’t have the confidence that she was going to win. The crowd was not that large and skewed older.

I was not impressed with her energy, and I bought Crockett “No” in the high 70s while still at the campaign event.

I left her campaign event early to get to the Talarico rally, and I noticed that some media people were leaving with me, which I also found interesting.

After a 45-minute Uber ride, I entered the Talarico rally, and it was a stark contrast to the Crockett event. There were considerably more campaign staff and volunteers who welcomed me. One lady even said, “A young, attractive white man with cowboy boots? We need all of your friends to come to the polls tomorrow, and we’re guaranteed to win.”

There were probably 1,000 people in the crowd compared to 100 at the Crockett event. When Talarico came on the stage, the crowd went wild. I had listened to Talarico’s stump speech before, and his speech that night was really no different, but being there in person was a different experience.

While his policies are probably more progressive than Crockett’s, his style and the language he used was much more welcoming to moderates and Republicans. He talked a lot about love, unity, and, more than anything, winning and turning Texas blue. His laser focus on winning drew raucous applause.

The energy in the room was palpable. His campaign seemed like a well-oiled machine, and Talarico just had the juice. After he concluded the rally, he said that he wanted to meet everyone who wanted to meet with him.

In line, I talked to voters and campaign staff who seemed confident he was going to win. They were very interested that I was wearing a Kalshi hat, and were all well aware that though many polls had Crockett leading, the Kalshi odds had Talarico as the clear favorite.

My favorite moment of the night was when I met Talarico and asked him what he thought of his Kalshi odds. Talarico jokingly responded, “Oh wow. Okay, 84%. Why do we even need an election?”

After going to both rallies, I tweeted out my analysis. Though I was likely biased by my positive experience at the Talarico rally, I felt something while listening to him speak and talking to voters that I’m sure others across the state of Texas were feeling. I concluded that part of why the early vote turnout had been so high was because Talarico was motivating voters who would traditionally not turn out in a Democratic primary. I became more confident that he was going to win.

I started Election Day by going to Office Depot to create a makeshift exit polling operation which included poster board, pictures of the candidates, and stickers for voters to show who they voted for. On the back of the poster, I included the Kalshi odds to give people a sense of how traders were pricing the likelihood of each candidate winning.

My goal was to go to different voting precincts across Houston to get a representative slice of the entire voting electorate, and I used HarrisVotes.com to see which polling stations were busier than others. As the day went on, I slowly filled out the posterboard with stickers, but I found that my conversations with voters and campaign volunteers were even more insightful. 

Though anecdotal in nature, I was able to conclude that Election Day turnout in Black precincts was lower than anticipated, which was a negative sign for Crockett. Lower overall turnout on the Republican side indicated to me that the likelihood of a runoff on the Republican side was high, as Paxton winning the race outright was dependent on him receiving high Election Day turnout.

After I thought the Democratic side of the race was all but determined (before any votes had been cast), I decided to focus all my energy on the Republicans, which meant I needed to get out of the city center and into the suburbs and exurbs. I spent most of my time at a precinct at First Congressional Church, which had two lines: Democratic and Republican. The Republican line had over 100 people in it consistently, while the Democratic line had no one. 

It was interesting being with all the people who were giving out fliers or holding signs right outside the lines to go vote. There were rules about the distance you could be from the voters, and I was careful not to get too close. The campaigners all thought it was interesting how I was not there to support any candidate, but just to survey voters.

One person made the comment, “Oh, this is how exit polling works.” Real exit polling was definitely way more sophisticated than what I was doing, but there was unlikely to be any real exit polling from this race, given how expensive it was.

What I found is that most of the people campaigning were Paxton supporters. Some were ashamed by this fact, and put the sticker on in secret, or even whispered in my ear who it was, so I could put the sticker on for them. It made me think that maybe there are some “secret Paxton voters,” like the “secret Trump voters” who were underpolled.

On the other hand, every Paxton voter that I talked to was almost certain the race would go to a runoff and that Paxton wouldn’t win the race outright, which was interesting because the market was priced at 30% that there wouldn’t be a runoff. This made me feel good with my yes runoff position. 

Also, the response from Cornyn voters when they saw Paxton leading the vote totals was utter disgust. They could not believe so many people were voting for Paxton.

I had another interesting conversation with a woman who was campaigning. She said she did not identify as a Republican because she was too conservative for that label, and she’s constantly disappointed with the Republicans. I asked her if her friends felt the same way, and she actually said that in her “Magic club,” which she described as a women’s Republican club, most of them were voting for Cornyn because they were “Bushees” and were not happy about Paxton’s affair.

Though Paxton clearly won my exit polling, I realized, in hindsight, that my sample was skewed and not representative of the Election Day turnout at that precinct because I had allowed five of the campaigners to put stickers down. I realized that they were disproportionately more conservative than the median GOP primary voter, so they definitely skewed the sample further right. 

Also, I ran into two Democrats who were crossing over to vote for Cornyn in the primary. One said they were voting for Cornyn because they feared that Paxton would “rig the election” because he was the sitting Texas Attorney General and “corrupt.” All in all, that was enough for me to go into election night, holding my Cornyn Yes shares, because I still continued to believe they were undervalued in the teens.

The signals that I picked up on at the rallies and on Election Day did seem to translate into the election night results. Talarico won pretty handily by six points (I overestimated him slightly), and Cornyn ended up shockingly winning the first round, which propelled him to 50/50 odds with Paxton from 15/85 odds just 24 hours earlier. 

On Wednesday at 1:14 PM ET, Trump TRUTH’d that he was going to endorse a candidate in the GOP Texas Senate primary and ask the other candidate to drop out. As a result, Cornyn’s odds shot to the mid 80s, as reports emerged that John Cornyn was Trump’s pick. (Trump’s official endorsement has not come at the writing of this article).

While there is always unpredictability and variance with election results, my conclusion is that being on-the-ground to find information works! That alone made the trip worth it, but I also think the trip was worthwhile for other reasons.

I was struck by the number of people who approached me because I was wearing a Kalshi shirt and hat and asked about the odds. People were really fascinated by the idea of a market for the election and wanted to see the odds. I ran into multiple candidates for office that wanted me to check where their odds were.

Talking to voters and seeing campaigners advocate for their candidates also gave me optimism about our political system. Even though there is such ugliness and nastiness in politics, it was really cool to see people being so passionate about being involved in the political process, in a way that felt positive and good for democracy.

Follow Ben Freeman on X: @benwfreeman1
Follow Kalshi on X: @Kalshi

Disclosure/Disclaimer

^{The views expressed are solely those of the author, who trades on prediction markets, including markets available on Kalshi. The author was compensated for this article. Any trading referenced was conducted in a personal capacity. This content is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice or a recommendation to trade any market or outcome. Trading on Kalshi involves risk, and members may lose the full cost of entering a transaction, including fees. You should consider whether trading is appropriate for you based on your financial resources and experience. Information is provided on an “AS IS” basis. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange overseen by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.}