Florida Senate Primary Odds 2026: Kalshi's Nixon Pileup

Florida Senate primary odds: Florida's two Senate special primaries were held Tuesday, August 18, 2026, so the prices on this page are the election-morning record. Going in, Kalshi priced appointed Senator Ashley Moody near 99 cents to win the Republican nomination and Alexander Vindman near 91 cents on the Democratic side against Angie Nixon at about 8; 91 cents meant a 91% chance. The price history from that morning, including the Nixon pile-up, is below.

Prices as of Tuesday morning, August 18, 2026, from Kalshi's live market data on election day. They will keep moving until the markets settle on tonight's results.

Florida picks its U.S. Senate nominees today, Tuesday, August 18, 2026, and the two primaries on the ballot could not be reading more differently on the price history. One of them Kalshi's market treats as finished. The other it treats as an argument that is still going, and where traders have spent the final week building positions on the side the headline price says is losing. This is the one page that prices both races next to each other, because the most useful thing about them is the contrast.

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Two Races On One Ballot, And Only One Is Still Live

The two primaries exist for the same reason: Marco Rubio resigned Florida's Class III Senate seat to become Secretary of State, and Governor Ron DeSantis appointed former state attorney general Ashley Moody to hold it until this special election. That is why Moody runs as an incumbent who has never actually faced Florida voters for the office, and it is the through-line that explains both boards. The Republican establishment consolidated behind the appointee fast; the Democratic side did not consolidate at all, and the market can see the difference.

Here is the forward promise for the rest of this page: the single most interesting number in either race is not a favorite's price. It is a piece of participation data on the Democratic board that the 91-cent quote is built to make you skip. I will get there, but the Republican side has to come first, because the way that race closed is the reason the Democratic one stayed open.

The Republican Primary: A Race The Market Closed Months Ago

Kalshi's Republican nominee market (event KXSENATEFLR-26) prices Ashley Moody at a 99.3¢ bid against a 99.9¢ ask, last trade 99.9¢ on election morning: an implied chance right up against certainty. Every other contract on that board is penny dust, and the whole Republican board traded all of $77 in the last 24 hours: on the day of the election, the market is not even bothering to show up to a race it graded long ago. The reason is worth stating plainly, because it is where a careless read goes wrong.

Republican Nominee (KXSENATEFLR-26)	Kalshi price	On the certified ballot?
Ashley Moody (Appointed Incumbent)	~99¢	Yes
Ron DeSantis	~0.1¢	No — declined to be considered
Lara Trump	~0.5¢	No — declined to be considered

Kalshi opened this market in 2025 with a wide field of names people guessed might run; several never filed. Prices are live as of election morning, August 18, 2026. Model estimates, not predictions of fact and not voting advice.

The row that tells the real story is Ron DeSantis at essentially zero on more than 24,000 contracts of lifetime volume. Early in the cycle, traders put real money on the idea that the governor, or Lara Trump, might take the seat. Those positions are still open (DeSantis alone shows more than 21,000 contracts of open interest), but they repriced to zero when both declined to be considered for the appointment and never entered the primary. The certified Republican ballot ended up being Moody plus a short list of little-known challengers, Chris Gleason, Neelam Taneja Perry, Ernest "Ernie" Rivera and Jake Lang among them, none of whom Kalshi prices above a penny. So when you see a headline "board" of famous Republicans, understand what you are looking at: a graveyard of names that never ran, sitting behind an appointee the party lined up behind. That is what a settled primary looks like in cents. Our full steelman for the favorite is here if you want the case in depth: Why Ashley Moody will win the Florida Republican primary.

The Democratic Primary: The One Still Being Argued

Now the race the market has not closed. Kalshi's Democratic nominee board (event KXSENATEFLD-26) prices exactly two names as alive, and they are the two who actually filed: Alexander Vindman and Angie Nixon. Between them, the two campaigns have raised more than $17 million combined, per campaign-finance reporting, with Vindman's roughly $14.5 million through June making up the bulk of it.

Democratic Nominee (KXSENATEFLD-26)	Bid	Ask	Last	Open interest (Tue AM scan)
Alexander Vindman	91.3¢	91.5¢	91.4¢	~39,400
Angie Nixon	7.4¢	8¢	8¢	~57,000
Jared Moskowitz	0¢	0.5¢	0.7¢	—
Charlie Crist	0¢	0.1¢	0.1¢	—
Josh Weil	0¢	0.1¢	0.1¢	—

Prices live as of election morning, Tuesday, August 18, 2026; open-interest figures are from our Tuesday-morning market scan. The zero-bid names belong to Democrats whose lines went quiet when they did not enter this race: Crist filed for mayor of St. Petersburg, Moskowitz is running for reelection to the U.S. House. Model estimates, not predictions of fact and not voting advice.

Read that table for the favorite and it is a rout: Vindman at 91, an implied 91%, about -1000 to lay — though notice the direction. He closed Friday at 92.9¢, touched 94¢ on Sunday, and has sagged through 92.2¢ Monday to 91.4¢ on the one morning a favorite wants his price firming. Read it for participation and it is not a rout at all. Nixon's line carries far more open interest than Vindman's (roughly 57,000 open contracts to 39,400), and the gap widened overnight as both books grew sharply into election day — Nixon's from about 31,000 open contracts on primary eve to 57,000, the favorite's from about 25,500 to 39,400. A 91-cent favorite whose challenger has the bigger book is not a market that has stopped arguing; it is one where positions keep stacking up on the other side and the quote has not followed. That divergence is the participation number this whole page is built around, and it is the reason this race, unlike the Republican one, is still worth watching tonight.

The tell in one line

on the Republican board the favorite owns the deepest line and everything else is dust. On the Democratic board, the underdog owns the deepest line. That gap is the difference between a settled primary and a live one.

What Nixon Money At 8¢ Is Actually Buying

An 8-cent line is only interesting if you can say what is funding it, so here is the honest breakdown. On primary eve, the Democratic board traded about 5,094 contracts and roughly 3,657 of them, about 72%, ran through Nixon's line; by Tuesday morning the board had turned over another $50,176 in 24-hour volume, and the open-interest gap between her book and the favorite's had grown, not shrunk. This is not a stale contract nobody touches; it is the most actively traded name on the board on election day, and the new positions keep opening on the underdog's line, not closing out of it.

That late money is not a prediction that Nixon wins. It is a bet on a specific mechanism. A national favorite like Vindman is priced on a profile that a poll of all adults rewards; a low-turnout August special-election electorate is smaller, more local, and more self-selected, the kind of room where a sitting Jacksonville state representative with a defined base and a progressive lane counts for more than a résumé. The Courthouse News framing of the race, a progressive insurgent against the Trump-impeachment witness, is exactly the split that turns out unevenly in a sleepy August primary. That is also what makes the open-interest number readable: with every other Democrat already priced out, every anti-Vindman position on the board is, in practice, a Nixon position. Conviction against the favorite has exactly one place to land, and it has been landing there.

Here is what I keep coming back to, and it is also the honest bear case: even with the favorite's two-day sag, the underdog's price has barely moved for it. Nixon's last trade sits at 8¢, roughly where she has been pinned for days, so all that accumulating position has bought two cents of drift in the favorite and no real repricing of her own line, with only hours of runway left to reverse an 83-point gap. A heavily funded losing side is still a losing side if the votes are not there. So the read is not that Nixon is secretly even money. It is that a board this actively traded, with the underdog's book this large, can reprice fast on the first turnout signal tonight. A contract bought near 8¢ could be sold into a firmer bid before the market ever settles, or it could expire worthless when the count lands; that is the trade, with both sides of it named.

A Worked Example: What Each Side Of This Board Pays Tonight

Because the mechanism above only means something in dollars, here is the same board as a payout table, using the live asks from this morning's quote. Every Kalshi contract settles at $1.00 if it resolves Yes and $0 if it resolves No, so the arithmetic is clean (fees excluded for clarity):

The Trade	Entry (live ask)	Cost per 100 contracts	If it settles Yes	If it settles No
Vindman YES	91.5¢	$91.50	$100.00 (+$8.50)	$0 (-$91.50)
Nixon YES	8¢	$8.00	$100.00 (+$92.00)	$0 (-$8.00)

Live asks as of election morning, August 18, 2026. Illustration of contract mechanics, not a recommendation of either side.

The favorite's line is the one worth narrating: laying $91.50 to win $8.50 is a 9.3% return that resolves in a single evening, and that is exactly the shape of trade a 91% probability is supposed to offer. The Nixon side risks $8 for a shot at $92, but remember the section above: much of her book is not necessarily playing for the full $1.00 settlement at all. Her own tape shows the middle path this weekend — she closed Saturday at 9.4¢ before fading back, so the same 100 contracts that cost $8.00 at today's ask were briefly marked $9.40 without a single vote being counted. A contract bought at 8¢ that catches an early-returns scare and a firmer bid can be sold above the entry without the race ever flipping. That middle path, not the 11.5-to-1 moonshot, is the most charitable reading of why 57,000 contracts are open on a line the price says is losing.

The case for each side of the Florida (FL) Senate primary, priced on Kalshi: Why Ashley Moody (R) Will Win the Florida Senate Primary · Why Ashley Moody (R) Will Win: Kalshi Odds · Why Angie Nixon (D) Will Win The FL Senate Race: Kalshi Odds

The Shelf Above: What The November Prices Say

Both primaries feed one general election, and the market for it reframes everything below it. Kalshi's November winner market for this seat (SENATEFLS-26) prices the Republican party near 86¢ (about 86%, roughly -600) and the Democratic party near 15¢ (about 15%, roughly +565). The national backdrop is a midterm that often runs against the president's party, but the Florida market is plain that this red-leaning seat is not where that tide is expected to land: 86 cents to 15 is not a price that expects an upset.

That matters back down at the primary, and it is not just theory here; it is the likeliest explanation for the exact number this page keeps returning to. When a primary electorate believes November is uphill for whoever wins the nomination, the usual discipline of picking the safe, electable name loses its grip, and voters feel freer to nominate the candidate who actually speaks for them. That is precisely the behavior Nixon's order book is showing, and at scale: her book did not just hold its lead overnight, it grew from roughly 31,000 open contracts to 57,000 against a favorite the market prices at 91 cents, on a seat the same market treats as a long shot in November either way. The 86/15 general and the swelling anti-favorite book are two readings of one belief. For the full chamber picture, our 2026 balance-of-power verdict prices the four control outcomes, and the 2026 Senate election odds board tracks every seat.

What To Watch Tonight

The mechanics are simple, and they make tonight the settlement and the last signal at once. Each candidate's contract resolves Yes if that candidate wins the party nomination; the market closes on the official result. Polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time, and because Florida's western Panhandle sits in the Central zone, the final polls close at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Three markers, in order of arrival. First, before the count: part of the pre-vote signal has already fired, because Vindman's line has sagged for two days, from a 94¢ Sunday close to 91.4¢ this morning (Monday's own close was 92.2¢, so the overnight move is small — this is a drift, not a break). The missing half is Nixon's bid punching up through her 8¢ ask; a firming underdog bid and a slipping favorite together would say the money finally started moving the price, not just the volume. Second, early returns: watch whether the count comes in small and base-driven (good for the insurgent) or broad (good for the national favorite). Third, the Republican side needs no watching at all: a 99-cent line that traded $77 in a day is the market telling you it has already graded that race, and tonight just makes it official. The Senate races are not the only Florida boards settling tonight, either. The same ballot decides the governor primaries, where Kalshi prices Byron Donalds near 98.5¢ on the Republican side and David Jolly above 99¢ on the Democratic side; the full board is on our Florida governor primary odds page. And Florida is not the only 8/18 primary being priced this way; Alaska's top-four Senate primary settles the same night, and the same read-the-price discipline applies.

The Board

The two primaries and the November shelf they feed, from the same election-morning, August 18, 2026 snapshot:

Market	Contract	Price	Implied
Republican Nominee (KXSENATEFLR-26)	Ashley Moody	~99.9¢	~99%
Democratic Nominee (KXSENATEFLD-26)	Alexander Vindman	~91¢	~91%
Democratic Nominee (KXSENATEFLD-26)	Angie Nixon	~8¢	~7-8%
Democratic Nominee (KXSENATEFLD-26)	Jared Moskowitz	~0.7¢	<1%
FL Senate Winner, Nov (SENATEFLS-26)	Republican party	~86¢	~86%
FL Senate Winner, Nov (SENATEFLS-26)	Democratic party	~15¢	~15%

The near-zero nominee contracts belong to names that did not file for this race; their last trades are stale marks from earlier in the cycle.

The single row I would frame this whole page around is still the Vindman-Nixon pairing: a 91-cent favorite whose 8-cent challenger owns the bigger book, sitting one shelf under a November market that already leans away from whoever wins tonight.

In Summary

Florida runs two Senate primaries today, August 18, and the market has already made up its mind about one of them. The Republican race is a 99-cent formality: an appointed incumbent the party consolidated behind, with a board full of famous names who declined to run priced at zero behind her, trading $77 a day. The Democratic race is the opposite — a favorite in Alexander Vindman whose price says rout even as it sags from a weekend 94¢ to 91¢, and whose order book says argument, with Angie Nixon's 8-cent line carrying about 57,000 open contracts to his 39,400 on a board that did $50,176 in a day. That does not make Nixon the favorite; the vote count is still hers to overturn, and eight cents is eight cents. It makes her the live alternative on the one board that has not stopped moving. When the polls close tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, the count settles both markets and grades every price on this page at once.

These prices are not free calls: every one will be graded in public once the markets settle, and the day's live prediction-market reads run through today's Kalshi picks. Election markets are their own lane here and are not carried on OddsShopper; if sports is your game instead, our free expert picks today hub carries this week's board.

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