Kalshi Co-founders Are Hedging Their Bets on 2026 Midterms

Kalshi co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara want you to bet on everything — but the duo is personally hedging their bets on whether Republicans or Democrats will win control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.

Mansour and Lopes Lara have together donated about $1 million to federal political campaigns and political action committees this election cycle, according to a NOTUS analysis of federal campaign finance records. They’re contributing to a broad range of Democratic and Republican campaigns — many of the candidates they’ve contributed to are involved in prediction market regulation in Congress.

Since June 2025, Mansour has spread $330,300 among Republican congressional campaigns and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He also contributed $251,100 across individual Democratic congressional campaigns and the Democratic Senatorial Congressional Committee.

Mansour, who also has strong ties to the cryptocurrency industry, contributed $22,000 to the joint fundraising committee of Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wisconsin) earlier this year. Steil is a largely pro-crypto lawmaker who introduced a bill to ban members of Congress from betting on prediction markets last month. Kalshi has been widely opposed to insider trading on the platform and supported guardrails for federal government officials.

He also gave $10,000 to the campaign of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and her joint fundraising committee. Gillibrand is a crypto industry ally and a supporter of prediction markets regulation. Mansour also gave $7,000 to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign in June 2025.

Lopes Lara has contributed $350,000 to the NRSC and Republican National Committee this year. She also gave $7,000 each to Democratic candidates such as Reps. Andrea Salinas (D-Oregon), Lori Trahan (D-Massachusetts) and Darren Soto (D-Florida).

“Like many leaders at U.S. regulated companies, ours support candidates on both sides of the aisle,” Dani Lever, a Kalshi spokesperson, told NOTUS in a statement.

So far in the 2026 election cycle, Mansour and Lopes Lara have contributed $614,700 to Republicans, almost double the $377,300 they contributed to Democratic campaigns. However, the pair have contributed to 62 Democratic candidates while only donating to 34 Republican campaigns.

As a company, Kalshi directly encourages its users to bet in politics — from political speeches to election outcomes, and it even provides its own estimates of political power based on its users’ bets.

Another prediction market industry leader, Polymarket co-founder Shayne Coplan, hasn’t donated to federal political campaigns since 2024, when he personally donated more than $90,000 to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Prediction markets have faced strong regulatory scrutiny by both states and members of Congress. The booming industry is regulated by the Commodities and Futures Trade Commission, a relatively obscure federal agency with fewer than 700 workers.

But Congress has been strongly debating how best to regulate prediction markets since a U.S. soldier made $400,000 after allegedly using insider information to make a Polymarket bet on the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Earlier this year, three congressional candidates were suspended from Kalshi after betting on their own campaigns on the platform. Former Rep. George Santos (R-New York) is also under investigation for suspected insider trading on Kalshi.

At least 16 states, including Arizona, Nevada and Michigan, have sued prediction markets alleging they’re running an illegal sports betting operation. Minnesota is the only state to have so far banned prediction markets — a law the federal government is challenging.

Mansour and Lopes Lara donated a combined $14,000 to the campaign of Rep. Angie Craig, a Democrat running to represent Minnesota in the Senate. A campaign spokesperson referred NOTUS to past statements from Craig, in which she supported federal regulation of prediction markets and expanding the CFTC. Craig did not provide comment for this story.

Despite the bipartisan nature of Kalshi’s co-founders, the company has fostered close ties with President Donald Trump’s administration. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., works for Kalshi as a senior strategic adviser and owns a $300,000 equity stake in the company, The Financial Times reported.

Kalshi and Polymarket have also both launched lobbying campaigns in Washington amid this growing regulatory pressure.

The president has given prediction markets his full-throated support. And CFTC chairman Michael Selig has reiterated that the relatively small agency should be the one regulating the industry — not state governments.

Congress has moved relatively quickly on prediction market legislation, particularly bills focused on curbing insider trading. In April, senators banned themselves from participating in prediction markets.

Scott Batchelder, a spokesperson for Salinas, told NOTUS that the Oregon congresswoman believes federal legislation is preferable to a “patchwork” of state laws. Congress, however, should be careful to address how much prediction markets and gambling overlap, he said.

“While prediction markets operate under a different legal structure than traditional sports betting, many consumers are using them in a very similar way,” Batchelder wrote. “We already understand the risks associated with gambling addiction, and we should apply those lessons here.”