Polymarket’s morning-of-election favorite won 238 of 273 sampled 2026 Senate, House and gubernatorial primaries, an 87% hit rate. But Bitquery Research estimates that a dollar staked on every favorite at that point would have lost four cents per dollar. The contrast is the point: a favorite can win often and still be too expensive to back.
How accurate were Polymarket’s primary favorites?
In its October 9, 2026 audit, Bitquery Research counted 238 winners among 273 races where it could score the voting-morning favorite. That is an 87% win rate. The audit reports a negative return of four cents per dollar for a strategy of backing every one of those favorites at the measured price. These are Bitquery’s calculations from Polygon trade data, measured October 9 using data through October 8; they have not been independently revalidated here. Read the Bitquery audit.
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Those figures answer different questions. The win rate asks how often the favorite won. Return also depends on the price paid and the payout when a prediction resolves. A favorite priced as though its chance were higher than its eventual win frequency can be a frequent winner but a losing bet overall.
Why a high win rate did not mean a profitable bet
The clearest mismatch was in the middle price range. Favorites priced from 50 to 90 cents won 71% of their races, while their average price was 77 cents. In other words, the group won less often than its average price implied. Bitquery attributes the overall loss to this gap.
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At the high end, favorites priced at 90 cents or more won 177 of 182 races. That is a strong historical hit rate, but it is still not certainty: five such favorites lost. Nor does a high chance of winning by itself establish that a bet is worthwhile; the price matters.
The audit’s concise characterization was “Quite accurate, but too sure of its favorites.” Its central calibration idea is that a price is well calibrated when outcomes occur about as often as that price implies. A single overall accuracy percentage hides whether the market’s prices matched actual frequencies in different bands.
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What the audit measured—and what it left out
Bitquery used each candidate’s average trade price during the 24 hours before 12:00 UTC on voting day. If no trade occurred in that window, it used the last trade in the preceding 30 days. Runoffs were scored on the runoff date. This is a defined snapshot, not a claim that every trader saw or could obtain that exact price.
- Races: Senate, House and gubernatorial primaries in the 50 states. Special elections and territories were excluded.
- Scored sample: 273 races. Nine additional markets were omitted because they settled before voting, lacked a usable voting-morning price, or had no settlement record.
- Market data: Polygon trades only. The figures do not include Polymarket’s US app or other platforms with off-chain books.
- Data period: Bitquery’s data begins September 1, 2025, though some markets traded earlier. The reported $36.3 million traded on these primary markets counts activity from that start date.
- Meaning of a wallet: A wallet is a blockchain address, not necessarily one person.
The result concerns who won the primary, not necessarily who ultimately appeared on the general-election ballot. Bitquery cautions that primaries are smaller, local contests and that this record may not carry over to general elections. The audit’s historical sample is not a forecast or trading recommendation.
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Notable cases: a costly miss and shifting favorites
Wisconsin: a 96-cent favorite lost
In Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, Francesca Hong was priced at 96 cents on voting morning, but David Crowley won by less than a point. Crowley had left the race and returned ten days later with the governor’s backing. Bitquery calls this the year’s costliest miss by traded dollars: $1.6 million traded in the market, and Hong’s daily average price had not fallen below 89 cents during the final week.
New Jersey and Texas: different paths to the result
In New Jersey’s Republican Senate primary, Justin Murphy won despite a voting-morning price of 0.4 cents; favorite Alex Zdan was at 79 cents. In Texas, Republican Senate favorite Ken Paxton rose from 78 cents to 94 cents after Donald Trump endorsed him, then won the runoff by 28 points. These are individual examples, not evidence that a particular event generally causes a market price or election result.
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Favorites changed late in some races
In 15 races, the favorite changed during the final week. The new favorite won seven; the former favorite won five; another candidate won in three. The split illustrates why the time chosen to measure a favorite matters: “the favorite” can change as a race approaches voting day.
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- Separate probability from value. A favorite’s implied chance is not the same as whether its price offers a favorable potential return.
- Check the time and market. The audit used a specific voting-morning window and Polygon trades, not every Polymarket product or order a user might encounter.
- Look at calibration by price band. An aggregate win rate can conceal groups whose outcomes fall short of their prices’ implied probabilities.
- Do not generalize this sample to all elections. These were state primary contests; the audit does not establish that the pattern applies to general elections.
Readers seeking to inspect or extend the calculations can use Bitquery’s API or request full trade-history files from the Bitquery Data Store, as described in the audit.
Quick Recap
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