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People used to call me with the latest poll numbers. Now they call to tell me what Kalshi says.
Election betting markets have become part of how Americans follow a race. But what are those odds actually telling us? And what happens when people treat them as a preview of the results?
Today I’m joined by Drey of to discuss how these platforms work, how a small number of wealthy bettors could influence the numbers, and her concerns about a feedback loop: betting odds become news, viewers place bets, and those new odds become the next headline.
We also discuss the Associated Press’s relationship with Kalshi, how media projections differ from final election results, and the questions that arise when betting payouts depend on those projections.
We also speak about passport records and voter eligibility: proposed changes to how that information is shared, privacy concerns, and what she’s tracking on government websites.
As results come in, keep this distinction in mind: betting odds reflect wagers. Projections can change. Official vote counts take time.
Watch our conversation at the top of this newsletter. Below is a transcript that has been lightly edited for clarity.
Jessica Yellin:
Hi, everyone. How is your midterms day going so far? I know the big question on your mind is: Who is going to win and how do we even know when they do?
One of the odd realities of 2026 is that some people are evaluating the races in new ways. They look beyond the polls to platforms like Kalshi, where people bet on election outcomes. They can treat those bets as a forecast of what’s going to happen. And one of the weirdnesses of our era is that some people trust them more than polls. That matters because those predictions can actually shape whether Americans believe the results, if the final totals end up looking a little bit different from what they expected.
So how does all that make sense? Who makes decisions at Kalshi? Can someone with enough money move the numbers? And what goes into those analyses?
I’m excited to have a conversation about all this with somebody I have just started becoming aware of, Drey of the Drey Dossier, who has been investigating this and has also been looking into the administration’s push to use passport records to check voters’ citizenship. So, Drey, first of all, hi. Nice to really meet you.
Drey:
Nice to meet you, Jessica. Thank you so much for having me. I’m a big fan, and I appreciate all the work. You’re a real hustler out there, getting all this news out, and I really appreciate it.
Jessica:
Thank you. I appreciate the investigative work you do, too. I know it’s not easy.
I’m super interested in Kalshi because I can’t tell you how many people now call me up and they’re like, “Well, Kalshi is showing this and that.” The way they used to say, “Well, the Siena poll shows this, but the Wall Street Journal, Peter Hart poll shows that.” Now they’re looking at these betting markets as if it’s like gospel.
I’m hoping you can break it down for us a little bit. Can you start first with the basics? On platforms like Kalshi, people can put money on who wins an election. So how does that work? And when we see that a candidate’s odds are improving, does that actually reflect reality? Or can somebody with a lot of money drive that race in a way on Kalshi that doesn’t actually reflect the real world?
Drey:
I’ll start by saying that the odds on Kalshi look like the wisdom of the crowd. But in reality, that crowd is quite small, because a nonprofit called the Anti-Corruption Data Collective found that on Polymarket only 1% of the accounts were behind 68% of the money that’s bet on midterms.
Jessica:
Wait, so that. So it’s Polymarket.
Drey:
They found that 68% of the money that was bet on midterms came from 1% of accounts. It can look like the voice of the people when in fact it’s actually not. There is a lot of trouble we can have with how this sways — how people perceive these votes are going to happen.
And just to lay some groundwork for people: Kalshi is obviously an app where people can put real money on things like who will control Congress, which you would think already has enough of our money — taxpayer wise and otherwise — on the line. It’s regulated by the federal government. The government tried to stop a lot of this and the courts cleared the way before the 2024 election. So now there’s money on top of your tax money that’s at stake for who can potentially sit in Congress.
Jessica:
Wow. I want to ask you about the relationship between the Associated Press and Kalshi. For folks who somehow don’t know, the AP is the source that newsrooms rely on for election results. They’re sort of the gold standard. I’m curious, what is the AP providing to Kalshi? Is there any kind of conflict of interest or what safeguards are in place to protect the AP?
Drey:
This year the AP started selling their live counts for the race calls to Kalshi, where they’ll show up essentially right next to the bets. Kalshi’s house rules say that the house can bet and pay out early once four of its eight designated outlets call the race for one party. And as long as none of the others disagree, then bets can be paid out that night.
Some of the conflicts of interests here: Now you have the AP being the data provider for all of the leading networks, like ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN. They all switched to AP in 2025, when they used to get calls from Edison. You had data coming from different places. So with places like CNN having separate deals with Kalshi, there’s a lot of potential for that corruption.
Then, of course, you have Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., on the board of Kalshi.
Jessica:
But you’re not suggesting that they would change the election results?
Drey:
No, I’m not suggesting that I know where that data is coming from or how they collect that data. Whatever is projected on your screen from each of these networks — they each can make their own call based on that data, but it is all coming from the same data outlet.
That’s just worth keeping in mind, because when you see five different projections on screen, sometimes you think it’s five separate data streams — when it’s all coming from one. That’s why it’s important to pause and let the counts continue. I mean, counts go through December 3rd — I believe they let all of the mail and ballots and stuff come in. So it’s important to be patient and just let those official counts come through.
Jessica:
Right. You’re making an important point that I can also underscore, which is: I know many viewers assume that when you see a vote call, like a projection by a network, it means that the votes have fully been counted and this is a final call. But in fact, it’s all a level of projection, which they do say. And the number that the media announces could change before all the votes are finally counted.
Drey:
On November 23rd in California, while we’re still counting, there are other bills that are trying to get pushed through, like making a passport part of eligibility in order for votes to be counted. So there are some things that can shift as we’re in the middle of counting. While we all may have voted in the midterms, it’s important not to exhale quite yet because there’s still a lot of people that need to be on watch for any of that to happen.
Jessica:
OK, I’ll go back to that one. But one question on Kalshi that surprised me from your reporting is that essentially, if there’s a vote call tonight and I bet on someone and that person is projected the winner, I’ll get paid out tonight. And if in the counting that changes and the person I bet on actually loses in the end. I still get the money. Kalshi doesn’t change who gets the money if the actual final total changes.
Drey:
I couldn’t find that part. That’s kind of the question, right? Because I couldn’t find that part in their document, in their contract. It’s important to remember that four out of eight have to all agree on a consensus. So long as the other four don’t disagree, then from what I read in this contract, that is how they will then allow payouts to potentially happen. I don’t know what their policy is with it if it switches. I’m sure that that will cause a whole other slew of problems. But I just think that considering that is something that we need to be on the watch for, it’s important to remember that uncertainty we need to keep in the back of our heads.
Jessica:
So you’re saying four of eight networks?
Drey:
Yeah, so four of the eight leading networks.
Jessica:
Which are all based on the AP. So it’s all like this.
Drey:
Well, CNN has their own set, and has already been using Kalshi’s numbers as a means of projecting votes because they have their own partnership with them. I’m not saying that anybody’s doing anything malicious. I think that we just need to be very, very vigilant of how this is going to affect people’s money in their wallet.
Jessica:
Right. And also, if the foundational information is wrong, then everybody’s wrong because they’re all basing it on the same foundation. It happens all the time. We saw it with Bush versus Gore. You know, it can happen. It’s a normal thing, that not having all the data could make your projection wrong. That’s a very normal thing.
I’m curious on Kalshi: Can someone with really deep pockets move the odds and make a candidate look stronger than they really are? And is there evidence that people have tried to do that?
Drey:
Like I said at the beginning, the Nonprofit Anti-Corruption Data Collective found that Polymarket had 1% of accounts behind 68% of the money that was bet on the midterms. I would say that that absolutely can happen. And I do believe that three congressional candidates were tossed out for betting on their own races. They had to face a federal judge for that in April.
Jessica:
One of the conversations in 2024 was that these betting markets are for sure being manipulated. People assumed that and that there were people who were going to bet on somebody to make their candidate look stronger. But we’ve never been able to actually definitively find somebody doing that or prove that. We assume it based on the numbers, but it’s not something that we’ve determined. Is that right?
Drey:
To my knowledge. I think the loop worries me the most. This is what I would say for anybody who’s worried about this. I think CNN using these odds for coverage and then people betting on what they just watched and then those odds going back on TV as the news for the coverage is the loop that concerns me the most.
Jessica:
I see. Let’s turn to your reporting on how the government checks whether someone is eligible to vote and what happens when its records are incomplete or even wrong. I know that you’ve looked into efforts by the Trump administration to use passport records to check people’s eligibility and citizenship. So can you explain a little bit about what’s currently used, what’s being proposed, and what concerns you?
Drey:
I don’t know about anybody else, but just because of all of the conversations around the SAVE Act and Congress trying to pass a law to show a passport for voting — which didn’t go through or anything — I was nervous enough today when I went to vote that I brought a passport just in case, even though it’s not legal for them to ask you to show that. It kind of goes to show this deep-seated doubt now that at least I know I have with what this government is trying to push through.
The important thing for people to remember is that the State Department changed its own rules in October. It published a rule that lets passport records be shared with government agencies and nonprofit groups to check voter eligibility. Now, that still has to go through the House and it’s still being talked about; I think you can give comments until November, which is, again, in the middle of when California is still counting its ballots. That is something that potentially could go through. Something that was also on California’s voting today was that if you want to pass a proposition that allows for that passport to be used for voter eligibility.
Jessica:
What kind of changes are you tracking on government websites involving passports and voter information?
Drey:
In May, I found a working copy of —well, a copy that was behind a firewall — Vote.gov being used inside the White House office, built by the National Design Studio, along with Passports.gov. I did a video about this back in May, I believe. It was all registered to the White House and has since been moved over to the State Department, Passports.gov. I worry about the data that is being collected from the information we give for our passports, our photos, our place of birth.
Jessica:
So what you’re saying is that these websites that used to be the domain of the agencies are now under the White House?
Drey:
They were built under the White House, but now I’m seeing them start to move. So they were built under the executive office of the president, the EOP, National Design Studio. Now I’m seeing them starting to move them around — like the passports.gov, which the passport state office back in May had no idea about when I called them. That was originally under the EOP, and now it’s moved under the State Department. So I don’t know if it’s being used or not, but it’s worth keeping in mind that data is starting to travel now into different agencies.
Jessica:
So It sounds like this is part of the consolidation of all of our information that this administration has said they’re doing, beginning with DOGE. Before you had your tax information here and your passport information here, and the two shall never mix. Now they’re consolidating everything so they can have one national database with all Americans.
Drey:
Yeah, I believe they call that “frictionless,” Jessica. We want to live in a frictionless world. Apparently, keeping that separation of church and state isn’t so sexy when it comes to not having your way in voting, you know?
Jessica:
Well, Drey, I love that you’re looking into all this stuff. I’m really grateful to you for delving into it and explaining, especially to a lot of people for whom all this is very new, especially Kalshi. Thank you.
Drey:
Thank you so much for having me. Grateful.
Jessica:
And you can find the Drey Dossier on all the socials, especially Substack and YouTube. Check her out.
To everyone watching, just a reminder that the only votes that count are the ones you actually cast. We will be here throughout Election Day, bringing you updates from key races, explaining what is actually going on, and bringing you the projected vote totals when they do come in. Stay tuned. Take some breaks and I’ll see you soon.
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