With midterm elections only days away, prediction market odds show that five Senate races have tightened considerably over the past week. The figures show that the gap between candidates on Polymarket has narrowed by between 4 and 20 points in South Carolina, Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Kansas. Several of the contests are expected to determine control of the chamber in Tuesday's midterms.
Four have been deemed toss-ups by the Cook Political Report, while the South Carolina race has been rated "lean Republican." Experts told Newsweek that it's not unusual for polls and other indicators in competitive races to tighten as Election Day approaches. "Usually, this tells us what we already knew: that the race is close and that anything can happen once votes are counted," said Costas Panagopoulos, a professor of political science at Northeastern University. Republicans are scrambling to preserve their slim majorities in Congress ahead of next week's elections, with polls showing unexpectedly competitive races in several reliably Republican states amid Trump's slipping approval ratings and voter concerns about the economy and the Iran war.
Democrats need to pick up a net of four Senate seats to gain a majority of 51 seats, and the seats in Alaska, Iowa and Kansas are among those the party is hoping to flip. In South Carolina, Polymarket odds show Republican incumbent Darline Graham's advantage over Democrat Annie Andrews dropping by 11 points since last Friday. She had 79 percent odds to Andrews' 23 percent, a 56-point gap, on October 23.
However, that has slipped to 73 percent while Andrews' odds are now 28 percent, a 45-point gap. Andrews, a pediatrician, has fought an unexpectedly competitive race against Graham in the ruby red state. Graham was appointed to fill the remaining months of her brother's term.
Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly in July, had held the seat since 2003. Last week, three male escorts alleged in a documentary that the late senator had paid them for sexual encounters. In a sign of the GOP's anxiety about the race, President Donald Trump traveled to South Carolina on Thursday, his second visit this month, to rally supporters in a state he won by 18 points in 2024.
Though Polymarket favors Graham, recent polls show a much more competitive race. The RealClearPolling average of recent polls puts Graham ahead by 2.7 points, 47.7 percent to Andrews' 45 percent. Prediction markets allow traders to buy and sell contracts tied to political outcomes and current events, aggregating real‑money wagers into probability estimates.
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