Polymarket
KalshiOhio's 13th District: Emilia Sykes Held the Seat the Market Had Already Called
Emilia Sykes won Ohio's 13th District race. NBC News projected the Democratic incumbent the winner over Republican Carey Coleman. With every Election Day precinct reporting, the Ohio Secretary of State's unofficial results, read at 9:52 a.m. Eastern on November 5, 2026, gave Sykes 190,593 votes to Coleman's 122,078, a margin of 68,515, with Sandeep Dixit, the nonparty candidate, at 5,104. The venues had priced that hold as close to certain: on November 2, 2026, Polymarket had the Democratic contract at 97% against Kalshi's 98%, and Polymarket had the Republican contract at 2%, which treated a Coleman win as roughly a one-in-fifty event. On November 4, 2026 Kalshi and Polymarket both quoted the Democratic contract at 100%. The count is unofficial until the Secretary of State certifies it after the official canvass.
The Ohio 13th District race of 2026, Democrat Emilia Sykes against Republican Carey Coleman, was priced as close to settled on the eve of the vote, and the market rests on three things at once: an incumbent who already held the seat, a campaign account many times the size of her opponent's, and a statewide mood that tilted toward Democrats this fall. The venues put a Sykes hold near the ceiling, a step past Sabato's Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report, which both listed the seat as Likely Democratic. It was an Ohio question because the 13th was contested on the congressional map the Ohio Redistricting Commission passed on October 31, 2025, with Canton, North Canton and the townships around them in Stark County among the places that voted in it on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. The live board above carries the final prices from Kalshi and Polymarket.
Who Was on the Ohio 13th District Ballot
The incumbent anchors the race. The Clerk of the House member list, published October 1, 2026, records Emilia Strong Sykes, a Democrat with Akron as her listed home town, as the member for the 13th District; she served in the previous Congress as well, and the current term began when she was sworn in on January 3, 2025 after the November 5, 2024 election.
Three names were on the general-election ballot. The Stark County Board of Elections' updated notice for the November 3, 2026 election, the version posted 46 days out, lists Emilia Sykes (Democratic), Carey Coleman (Republican) and Sandeep Dixit, a nonparty candidate, for the 13th District.
The same notice shows how the new lines divide Stark County. The 13th takes in most of the City of Canton, North Canton, Plain Township, most of Jackson Township and parts of Canton, Lake and Osnaburg townships. Alliance, Massillon, Louisville and Canal Fulton, by the same notice, vote in the 6th District instead, which is why the Ohio 6th District market and this one share a county and very little else. The October 2025 deal that produced the map, by Wikipedia's account of the commission's work, redrew the Akron-area 13th to be slightly friendlier to Democrats while making the 1st and 9th more Republican.
Why the Ohio 13th District Price Sat Near the Ceiling
At 6:38 p.m. Eastern on November 2, 2026, Polymarket had the Democratic contract at 97% against Kalshi's 98%, and Polymarket had the Republican contract at 2% against Kalshi's 3%. That treated a Coleman win as roughly a one-in-fifty event on the cheaper venue, a shade further out than on October 23, 2026, when both venues had the Democratic side at 96%. The price placed the 13th among the seats the venues regarded as decided rather than contested: the same evening Kalshi had the 6th District's Republican side at 98%, Polymarket had the 1st District's Democratic side at 95%, and the closest of these boards, the 15th, had its leader at 63% on Polymarket.
What the price is saying is that the market treats Sykes's incumbency and her money as the deciding facts and the year as a tailwind rather than a risk. The money was lopsided. The Federal Election Commission's candidate totals through the pre-general report, which closed on October 14, 2026, show Sykes with about $3.99M raised in the cycle and about $942K in cash, against about $170K raised and about $63K in cash for Coleman, whose total includes $51K he lent his own campaign. Dixit reported about $92K raised and about $2K on hand. In the last three weeks of a House race, a fifteen-to-one cash edge is the difference between a campaign that can keep advertising to the end and one that cannot.
The tailwind was measurable too. Marist's statewide poll, taken from October 15 to October 18, 2026, found Ohio likely voters choosing the Democrat on the generic congressional ballot by 49 to 47, with 40% saying their vote for Congress is mainly a vote against President Trump. That means a Democratic incumbent with the larger account, in a state leaning slightly Democratic on the generic ballot, was on the market's reading a long way from danger.
The forecasters were more cautious. In the rating tables 270toWin carried on November 2, 2026, Sabato's Crystal Ball, updated October 30, and the Cook Political Report, updated October 23, both listed Sykes's seat as Likely Democratic, the same category they use for Greg Landsman in the 1st District. Inside Elections has rated the 13th Solid Democratic since March 12, 2026, by Wikipedia's ratings table. The venues priced both Sykes and Landsman at 95% or higher on the eve of the vote, so the gap between the ratings and the price was the same in both districts: the market had gone further than most of the forecasters in the same direction.
The Trading Behind the Ohio 13th District Price
The board was quiet. Kalshi had matched about 16,200 contracts on the district by November 2, 2026 and Polymarket about $47.3K, each venue counted in its own unit, up from about 14,800 contracts and $45.8K on October 23. In the 24 hours before the November 2 read Kalshi recorded about 815 contracts and Polymarket $15. Most of Polymarket's money sat on the long shot: about $34.7K of its volume is on the Republican side against about $12.6K on Sykes. On Kalshi the split ran the other way, with about 9,900 contracts on the Democratic side and about 6,300 on the Republican.
That pattern says traders have taken small positions on an upset without moving the price, and that the late trading has nudged the board toward the incumbent rather than away from her. A price built on this little money is still a price, but it is one reason the 97% Polymarket showed on November 2, 2026 was better read as the market's settled view than as a fresh judgment on the final days of the campaign.
The Case Against the Ohio 13th District Read
The strongest case against the market before the vote was that it had priced a competitive seat as if it were a safe one. Sabato's Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report still rated the 13th Likely Democratic, which by their own scales meant a seat they watched, not one they had stopped watching. The Marist poll of October 15 to October 18, 2026 that showed Democrats ahead on the generic ballot also found 52% of Ohio likely voters expecting the Republican congressional candidate to win in their district, a sign that the statewide edge is narrow and that voters themselves do not read the year as a Democratic wave. A reader who held this view would add that the 13th ran on new lines for the first time, that a third candidate on the ballot could shift a close count, and that no public poll of the district existed to confirm the margin the price assumed. On that reading the fair number for a Coleman win was well above one in fifty.
The answer the price gave was the shape of the evidence. No public poll of the district showed a close race, every forecaster's rating pointed the same way as the price, the money ran heavily to the incumbent, and the statewide numbers leaned toward her party rather than against it. The count settled the question by a wide margin, about 21.6 points in the unofficial results, and what the case still gets right is only that a near-certain price leaves a small chance, which a single result can neither confirm nor refute.
What Changes the Ohio 13th District Read
The read would be wrong now only if the official count reversed the unofficial one, and a margin of 68,515 votes leaves that a long way off. The dated, observable steps still ahead:
• Outstanding ballots: provisional ballots, and overseas and military ballots that arrive by mail within four days of Election Day, are counted in the official canvass; on November 5, 2026 the Secretary of State listed 98,369 provisional and 3,779 overseas and military ballots outstanding statewide, spread across all fifteen districts.
• The canvass: the Secretary of State says the official canvass is completed about three weeks after the election and that results are unofficial until it certifies them; no certification date is published on the results page.
• A recount: Ohio Revised Code 3515.011 orders an automatic recount in a district race only when the margin is under one-half of one percent of the total vote, and the unofficial margin here is about 21.6 points.
• Settlement: Polymarket resolves on a consensus of credible reporting about the winner's party; Kalshi pays on the party of the member sworn in for the term beginning in 2027, lists an expected expiration of January 4, 2027, and allows accelerated determination on a consensus media projection.
When the Ohio 13th District Market Resolves
The two venues settle the same question on different clocks. Kalshi lists the race under its HOUSEOH13-26 event: the Democratic contract resolves Yes if the House member sworn in for OH-13 for the term beginning in 2027 is a member of the Democratic Party, the Republican contract on the same test for the Republican Party, with an expected expiration of January 4, 2027, a latest expiration of November 3, 2027, closing after the new representative is sworn in, and eligibility for accelerated determination once a consensus of media organizations projects the winner. Kalshi's House terms define that consensus as at least four of eight named news organizations calling the race, with none contradicting the call. Kalshi did not wait for the swearing-in: it settled both OH-13 contracts on that early clause at 8:48 p.m. Eastern on November 3, 2026, the Democratic one at Yes. Polymarket resolves on the party of the candidate who wins the seat in the November 3, 2026 election, as indicated by a consensus of credible reporting, and on the official results reported by the Federal Election Commission if there is ambiguity.
One clause matters more here than in most Ohio districts. Polymarket counts a winner without a Democratic or Republican ballot label as a member of whichever of the two parties that winner most recently said they would caucus with, so Dixit's nonparty candidacy is covered by the rules rather than left as a gap. Each venue's own rules govern its contracts.
Related Ohio 13th District and House Markets
The Ohio 6th District shares Stark County with the 13th and was priced just as firmly the other way. The Ohio 1st District was the other Democratic seat the venues treated as nearly decided, and the Ohio 9th District the Democratic seat they treated as genuinely contested; each page now carries its own count. The Ohio governor's race and the Ohio Senate special election shared the ballot, and every race is on the elections hub.
