This election forecast tool updates every 10 minutes. Here’s what it’s predicting about Democrats’ chances
With control of the U.S. Senate on the line, a new tool is tracking the battle in near real time. Throughout the day, the platform pulls data from the prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket, and then uses statistical models to simulate a million versions of the midterm elections , with outcomes for each of the 35 races in play. “Every 10 minutes, I’m running a gigantic simulation,” says Thomas…
An election forecast tool, "NowCasting," updates every 10 minutes to track the battle for control of the U.S. Senate. This tool, created by Thomas Miller, uses prediction market data from Kalshi and Polymarket and runs million simulations of the midterm elections. Miller, a data scientist and faculty director at Northwestern University, emphasizes that the tool is data-driven and not influenced by political biases or pollsters.
NowCasting adjusts the prices from the prediction markets and combines them with statistical modeling, similar to the methods used in finance and econometrics. Despite some research suggesting prediction markets can be more accurate than polls, the probabilities generated by the tool differ from the betting prices. This is because a large bet from a single trader could potentially distort the price, and platform fees and other pricing dynamics also affect the numbers.
On Friday, the latest model suggested Republicans had a 17.5% chance of keeping Senate control, down from earlier that day. The tool's prediction has fluctuated significantly in the days leading up to Election Day, with Democrats now predicted to have a roughly 90% chance of gaining control of the Senate.
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