Prices as of August 25, 2026, 6:23 p.m. Eastern. Record compiled from 17 dated sources; see the sourced record file for every citation.
This is the steelman case for Karishma Manzur. The companion piece argues the favorite's side: Why Chris Pappas (D) Will Win the NH Senate Primary. The Republican half of the September 8 ballot runs through Why John E. Sununu Will Win.
At 9:54 on Monday morning, August 24, somebody on Kalshi bet about $19,300 that Karishma Manzur loses the New Hampshire Democratic Senate primary. The trade was 19,900 contracts on the "no" side of her nomination at a yes price of 3 cents, which means the seller risked roughly $19,300 to collect about $600 if she loses on September 8. It was the largest single print in the nearly eight-month life of her contract.
That is what the market thinks of a first-time candidate from Exeter who, according to NHPR on August 7, has rented "a large billboard" in Chris Pappas's home city of Manchester over his AIPAC-linked money, and who asked a crowd on the State House lawn on July 31: "If anyone takes even a dollar from a foreign lobby, should that be considered treason?" In mid-August Saint Anselm College polled the primary and found Pappas 59, Manzur 28.
On Kalshi, where a price in cents is a probability, her contract was quoted at 2.5 cents by buyers and 2.9 by sellers on Tuesday evening: call it a 3% chance, roughly +3,350 in sportsbook terms. Pappas sat at 97.3 to 97.4, about 97%, or −3,750. The case below is the honest argument for the 3-cent side, and the record it rests on cuts both ways.
Stay ahead of the markets.
Daily insights and expert picks on Kalshi, Polymarket, and what's moving markets.
Free forever. Unsubscribe anytime.
The Board
As of August 25, 2026, 6:23 p.m. Eastern (Kalshi, cents = probability):
| Outcome | Price | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| Chris Pappas | 97.4¢ | about 97% (≈−3,750 in sportsbook terms) |
| Karishma Manzur | 2.9¢ | about 3% (≈+3,350) |
| Other Kalshi-listed names, not on the ballot | 0.9¢ to 2¢ asks | about 1% to 2% each, no buyers |
Prices are the sellers' asks. Kalshi's board still lists Stefany Shaheen, Maggie Goodlander, Annie Kuster and Jared Sullivan at pennies, but none of them is on the Democratic Senate ballot: Shaheen is running in the 1st District, Goodlander and Kuster declined, and Sullivan is not on the ballot. The ballot itself, per the state list, is Pappas, Manzur and three little-known filers: David Jarvis, Maxwell L. Saal and John Vail. The odd thing about this book is where the money sits. Manzur's line has traded about 35,200 contracts lifetime with 32,600 still open, more than the favorite's 26,200 and 20,400. Polymarket, checked at the same moment, had her at 3.75 cents and Pappas at 95.85. The contract settles on the nomination itself: New Hampshire votes in a single round on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, the plurality winner is the nominee, and the market can close that night.
What the Models Think
We also asked a panel of AI models the same question without showing them the price, only the sourced record below. Six of the panel's eight seats ran this board; the other two were not run. Blended together, their middle answer put Manzur at 3.5%, a shade above the 2.9-cent ask, and the widest gap between any two models was 2 points. Every seat reached for the same two facts, the 59–28 poll and the cash gap, which one model summarized as "a first-time challenger trailing a four-term congressman 59–28 with $49K against $5.2M two weeks out almost never closes that gap."
These are model estimates, not predictions. The market has real money behind it; the panel has only the record.
The Billboard, The Treason Question And A Twenty-Eight
Manzur entered the race on August 20, 2025, with a video and a line that NHPR quoted the same day: "I don't come from wealth, power, or a famous name, but I'm living proof the American dream is still possible, and still worth fighting for." She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology, has researched Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy, volunteered with New Hampshire Peace Action and Open Democracy, and had never run for anything. Her frame from day one, per the Union Leader, was that "the lives of 1.4 million people have been controlled by two families," the Sununus and the Shaheens, and that "it doesn't matter if there's a D or an R after their names."
"Do not allow anyone to justify why they take that money, because they are taking that money because they are going to answer to their donors." (Karishma Manzur, State House lawn, July 31, 2026, as reported by NHPR)
She told The Dartmouth in February what she was up against: "Rep. Pappas has name recognition and access to millions of dollars from national donors. We don't." The Federal Election Commission filings show the gap. Her committee raised $206,753 through June 30 and had $48,998 left; the Boston Globe put Pappas at nearly $5.2 million in the bank at the same checkpoint. That is a ratio of about 106 to 1, in a state where the exchange has closed the favorite between 93 and 98 cents on every day his contract traded in August.
What she has instead is an issue, and a calendar. On July 31 she launched a 10-day van tour from the State House lawn with a pledge to back a ban on super PACs ("otherwise the billionaires are going to buy this seat," per NHPR), and a week later NHPR's Josh Rogers laid out the fight she picked: Pappas has taken "$30,000 directly from AIPAC, and hundreds of thousands of dollars more from individual donors that AIPAC helped facilitate," she says Israel committed "genocide" in Gaza, and the billboard went up in his hometown. Pappas answered in the same story that "this is a moment for a reset in that relationship" and that he hopes "Netanyahu is on his way out the door." Then came the poll: Saint Anselm's August 17–18 survey of 1,411 New Hampshire likely voters, reported August 22 by InDepthNH from a Democratic-primary subsample the release does not size, had her at 28 percent against a congressman who has won the state's swing district four times. Progressive Victory, Peace Action, Third Act, Track AIPAC, former Rep. Jamaal Bowman and two state representatives are on her endorsement list. The Pappas campaign confirmed on August 25 that he will debate her on WMUR "next week," a statewide televised stage; the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript has reported the date as September 4, which the fetched confirmation does not specify. She has two weeks left to make her case for the seat the whole Senate map is watching.
The Case, And What The Record Says Against It
The steelman starts with the tape, because it is the one place where her side has shown tradable momentum. Her contract has been sold down to 3 cents, but it keeps getting bought. On Wednesday, August 19, at 2:16 p.m. Eastern, someone bought 500 contracts at 7 cents, 500 more at 8 and 250 at 11, and the contract printed as high as 18 cents that day on 3,199 contracts, six times Tuesday's ask, before sellers took it back to 7 by the close. Open interest on her line went from 4,605 contracts at the end of August 18 to 11,842 at the end of August 23, then to 31,772 after the August 24 print, and sits at 32,581 now. Most of that is the one big seller, but the challenger's contract is still the busiest line on the board.
The second mechanism is an earned-media shock. Her attack has forced Pappas to answer on Israel, the subject on which his language visibly changed between February and August: from "a strong supporter of the bipartisan U.S.-Israel relationship" at AIPAC's February summit, per NHPR's account of the video, to "a moment for a reset" by August 7. Her January CloseUp clip traveled on its own without a dollar behind it; one debate clip or local-news cycle that turns the AIPAC fight from a niche critique into the closing argument is the path, and whether it can happen in 14 days is the question.
The third is soft support, and it is the one the favorite has conceded. Pappas told WBUR on August 11: "We just want to make sure people understand that this is a tough, key fight." Two Manzur supporters writing in the Manchester Ink Link on July 25 described the voters they meet as making a "Faustian bargain": preferring the progressive but backing Pappas to "maintain the status quo by keeping a Democrat in office." Support that is tactical rather than ideological is the kind that moves, and her contrast is already sharp enough to move it: "he has never co-sponsored Medicare for All, I will; he has voted to approve billions of dollars in weapons transfers to Israel, I would never do that," as she put it to The Dartmouth. The structure helps at the margin. New Hampshire decides the race in one round by plurality, and undeclared voters can choose the Democratic ballot at the polls and return to undeclared status afterward. The Saint Anselm poll that shows her at 28 also says it is "not weighted by party registration or party identification," and the release we have does not break out the remaining 13 points. Twenty-eight percent for a candidate with $49,000 is more than a quarter of the primary telling a pollster they would rather have the biochemist. Whether undeclared voters have ever actually used that door for an insurgent in a September primary, the record does not say.
Now the record against her, because the same sources supply it. In January she said on WMUR's CloseUp, as Diya TV reported on January 23, that "we should absolutely defund ICE," that ICE "is acting like a paramilitary force," and, of ICE agents, "Do we even know who they are? Are they January 6th insurrectionists? Are they Proud Boys?" A clip spread quickly, and critics accused her of "smearing federal agents and undermining public trust in law enforcement." ICE's reply was that officers "follow federal law" and that face coverings "protect officers and their families from threats and harassment." On August 15 the Union Leader ran an editorial headlined "Who controls NH? Manzur is a bit mixed up," noting that Pappas belongs to neither family she is running against and that "the scientist needs to run a few more tests to prove her theory." And the Pappas campaign, in the August 7 NHPR story, says she "regularly overstates the extent of his AIPAC-support, including on the large billboard." Price all of that: her contract's high in the fetched window came on August 19, it closed at 2.2 cents on August 21, and it closed at 3 cents on each of the last two sessions. Pappas's own contract has not closed below 93 cents on any day it traded in August. The honest weakest link in her case is simple. There is exactly one public poll, it has her down 31, and two weeks is very little time to move a number that size with $49,000.
"That's also the funny thing about New Hampshire voters. They think they have a say in who represents them." (Union Leader editorial rebutting her two-families claim, August 15, 2026)
A worked example of the trade
One yes contract on Manzur at the 2.9-cent ask pays $1.00 if she wins the nomination: risk 2.9 cents to win 97.1, which is the +3,350 moneyline. A hundred contracts cost $2.90 and would return $100 if she wins, $97.10 of it profit before fees. The point for an underdog like this is that the contract does not have to settle to pay; it has to reprice. Anyone who bought the August 5 close at 3 cents could have sold into the 18-cent print on August 19 for six times the entry without the primary happening at all, with the caveat that on a book this thin the 18-cent tick was a moment, not a level. The buyer of 500 contracts at 7 cents that afternoon is the live version of this trade: $35 at risk, $465 if she wins, and a contract that has since closed as low as 2.2. The other side is the trade the big seller made: her no side asks 97.5 cents to win 2.5, about −3,900, and it pays at settlement if Manzur does not win the nomination on September 8, 2026. Neither side is advice.
The Bottom Line
Two weeks out, the market prices Karishma Manzur at about 3 cents and Chris Pappas at about 97, and the one poll and the one bank balance both say the market is right. The mechanism that matters most is the one the favorite has already answered: the AIPAC fight, the only issue on which his language changed between February and August, with a single-round, no-runoff primary that undeclared voters can join at the polls as the structure it would have to run through. The tension is that her best day on the tape, 18 cents on August 19, was sold straight back down, and the largest bet anyone has placed on her contract is $19,300 that she loses. The WMUR debate, confirmed by the Pappas campaign for next week, is the last known event that can change the number.
More on this: 2026 Senate Races: Every Kalshi Board We Track · Why Scott Brown (R) Will Win the NH Senate Primary · Why Chris Pappas (D) Will Win the NH Senate Primary · Why John E. Sununu (R) Will Win the NH Senate Primary · Patriots Vs Seahawks First TD Odds: Kalshi's Mystery Buyer
What Moves The Price From Here
- The WMUR debate, confirmed by the Pappas campaign for next week (the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript has reported September 4). Her January CloseUp clip traveled on its own; a debate clip that does the same, in either direction, is the one known event that can move a number this settled. This book has already shown what a clip does to it: 18 cents on August 19 on 3,199 contracts, then 2.2 two days later. A clip that reads well for her pushes the ask above 5 cents; a quiet hour pushes it back toward 2.
- A second public poll. Saint Anselm's 59–28 is the only number anyone has, and its primary subsample is unsized. A repeat confirms 97; a gap under 20 points would be the first real repricing catalyst of the race.
- The 19,900 contracts. The August 24 seller is the biggest position on her line, on a contract that traded 1,055 contracts in the last 24 hours. If that position is closed out before September 8, it is 19,900 contracts of buying on a line that thin, and the price would show it before any poll did. Polymarket's 3.75 cents against Kalshi's 2.9 is the venue gap to watch in the meantime.
This one settles on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, when New Hampshire votes.
Hero illustration: OddsShopper, in the house collage style. New Hampshire State House, Concord photo by Quintin Soloviev, licensed CC BY 4.0; photos cropped, toned, and composited.
Prices quoted are live Kalshi market prices as of August 25, 2026, 6:23 p.m. Eastern, and will keep moving until this market settles after the Tuesday, September 8, 2026 vote. OddsShopper covers prediction markets as an independent analyst: any model or panel figures referenced are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. This article does not advocate for or against any candidate or party. Trading involves risk; contracts can go to zero.
