Prices as of August 25, 2026, 7:00 p.m. ET. Record compiled from 8 dated sources; see the sourced record file for every citation.
This is the steelman case for Raymond McKay's side of the September 9 ballot. The companion piece argues the other primary happening the same day: Why Jack Reed Will Win the Rhode Island Democratic Senate Primary. The full race sits on the 2026 Senate election odds board.
In the spring of 2014, Raymond McKay was a City of Warwick network administrator who wanted to run against Sen. Jack Reed, and his own city took him to federal court to stop him. On May 30, 2014, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Lisi upheld a Warwick ordinance barring classified municipal employees from seeking office, which meant McKay could keep his job or chase Reed, not both. "The City of Warwick has taken me to Federal Court to press their rights in this matter, and the Warwick City Council has been a complacent by-stander allowing this travesty to unfold, I have no alternative," McKay wrote as he resigned from the Warwick Republican City Committee, in a letter reported by WarwickPost.com on June 13, 2014. He never made that ballot.
Twelve years later, the ballot problem has inverted itself. McKay, now retired and free of the ordinance that once caged him, is the only Republican listed for Rhode Island's September 9, 2026 Senate primary, according to Ballotpedia's candidate list, which marks his lone rival, Allen Waters, as withdrawn or disqualified. On Kalshi, where a price in cents is a probability, McKay's nomination contract last traded at 93.6 cents, about a 94% chance, roughly -1450 in sportsbook terms. The man a federal judge once ruled off the path to Jack Reed is now priced as a near-certainty to finally get his name on a November ballot across from him.
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The Board
As of August 25, 2026, 7:00 p.m. ET (Kalshi, cents = probability):
| Outcome | Price | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| McKay | 93.6¢ last | about 94% (≈-1450 in sportsbook terms) |
| Waters | 0.1¢ last | under 1% (≈+2500 at its 3.8¢ ask) |
| GOP In November | 1.2¢ last | about 1% (≈+8000) |
More live boards from the same panel: Why Jack Reed Will Win the Rhode Island Democratic Senate Primary (Reed's own nomination contract last traded at 99¢), the Rhode Island governor primary board from the same September 9 ballot, and the midterms balance-of-power board.
The contract pays out on whoever wins the Republican nomination for Rhode Island's Class II Senate seat, and the primary that decides it is September 9, 2026, a Wednesday, because the Rhode Island Department of State moved the date off the day after Labor Day. This is also a very quiet market: about fifty contracts of open interest, a first recorded trade in early July 2026 at 74 cents, and a wide gap between the 93.6-cent bid and the 99-cent ask. A 94-cent price is not a market wrestling with a question. It is a market that has read the same candidate list everyone else can read and is waiting for the calendar.
What The Models Think
We also asked a panel of AI models the same question. Six of the panel's eight seats ran this board, without seeing the price, only the sourced record below. Their middle answer put McKay at 97.5%, a few points above the 93.6-cent market, and the widest gap between two seats was 9 points, with the lowest at 90% and the highest at 99%. The reason was the same everywhere: this is ballot math, not persuasion. As one model put it, McKay is "the only Republican on the September 9 primary ballot," which makes "anything other than a McKay win nearly impossible." The sliver the cautious seats held back covers late withdrawal, a ballot challenge, or an organized write-in, the only doors left.
When the models sit above the market, the honest reading is that the market's discount is mostly plumbing: a thin book, a wide spread, and a rival contract that has not caught up to the news. These are model estimates, not predictions of fact; the market has real money behind it, and the panel has only the record.
Twelve Years From A Federal Courtroom To The Ballot
McKay's path here is unusually well documented, because he spent part of it in litigation with his own employer. Born in Providence, a U.S. Army veteran from 1981 to 1992 and a Hope High School graduate, he first ran for state Senate in 1998 while working as a classified city employee, by his own account without objection. "I was targeted for enforcement this time, even though I had previously run for State Senate as a classified employee in 1998," he wrote in 2014, criticizing what he called inconsistent enforcement, in the letter carried by WarwickPost.com.
The 2014 fight is the hinge of his story. Mayor Scott Avedisian offered a leave of absence so McKay could run; his lawyers told him it would not satisfy the ordinance, since he would still hold a position and an employee ID, "I just would not be receiving a pay check." After Judge Lisi's May 30, 2014 ruling, he resigned from the Warwick GOP committee, stayed employed, and watched the race against Reed go on without him. The president of the Rhode Island Republican Assembly, a signer of the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, was effectively a spectator in the one race he wanted.
Retirement dissolved the bar. In 2024 he finally got a Senate primary ballot line, and in 2026 he filed again, this time for the nomination to face the senator he was originally blocked from challenging. Jack Reed has held the seat since 1997 and is seeking a sixth term at the top of a three-way Democratic primary, the contested half of the September 9 ballot that the balance-of-power board cares about far more than this one.
The Case, And The Loss He Has To Answer For
The steelman for McKay at 94 cents is three sentences long. First, the ballot: Ballotpedia's fetched candidate list shows exactly one Republican in this primary, and it is McKay. Second, the field cleared for a documented reason: Allen Waters, the only other Republican who filed, is marked withdrawn or disqualified, and the Rhode Island Current reported on February 12, 2026 that Waters had launched a Providence mayoral bid as an independent instead. Third, the machinery: nomination contracts for sole listed candidates resolve on the primary result, and the primary is fifteen days away. Kalshi still lists a Waters contract at a 3.8-cent ask, but that is a shelf price on a candidacy the reference sources no longer show.
Now the record he has to answer for, because a 94-cent favorite still carries his history onto the ballot, from the courtroom controversy he criticized as targeted enforcement in 2014 to a certified electoral record that reads harshly. On September 10, 2024, McKay lost his own party's primary to Patricia Morgan by 29 points, 64.4% to 35.6%, 12,108 votes to 6,681, in an electorate of fewer than 19,000 Republicans. Morgan then lost the general to Sheldon Whitehouse by 20 points. The wider context is harsher: a University of New Hampshire survey from June 2026 had Reed leading McKay 52% to 35% in a general-election matchup, the race is rated Safe or Solid Democratic by Cook Political Report, Decision Desk HQ, and Fox News, and Republicans have not won a U.S. Senate election in Rhode Island since 2000. The general-election market prices the seat accordingly, with the Republican side at 1.2 cents. The honest weakest link in the McKay case is simply that the prize is the nomination, not the seat: he is about as heavy a favorite as an exchange can list in a primary where he is the last name standing, in a state where the market says the November mountain is about as steep as they come.
A Worked Example Of The Trade
One McKay YES contract at the 99-cent ask risks $0.99 to win $0.01 if he takes the nomination, which is a -9900 moneyline. Even at the panel's 97.5% blend, that penny of upside sits against two weeks of settlement risk, and with about fifty contracts open across the whole market, filling any size at either side of the 93.6-to-99 spread means waiting for a counterparty to show up. Some boards are trades. This one is a settlement clock, and the one line on it that looks mispriced is Waters' 3.8-cent ask against a candidate list that no longer includes him.
The Bottom Line
Raymond McKay is priced at 93.6 cents to win the Rhode Island Republican Senate primary because he is the only Republican on the September 9, 2026 ballot, and both the market and a six-seat model panel treat the rest as rounding. The panel's 97.5% middle answer says the market is, if anything, a touch cheap on a formality. The counterweight is McKay's own record, a 29-point primary loss in 2024 and a general election the market prices at about a penny for his party. The twelve-year arc from Judge Lisi's courtroom to an uncontested ballot line is a great story; the market is clear that the story's hard chapter starts the day after he wins it.
- 2026 Senate Races: Every Kalshi Board We Track
- Why Jack Reed Will Win The Rhode Island Democratic Senate Primary
- Why Scott Brown (R) Will Win the NH Senate Primary
- Why Ashley Moody (R) Will Win the Florida Senate Primary
- Why Jim Priest (D) Will Win The Oklahoma Senate Primary
What Moves The Price From Here
Ranked by how hard each would hit the 93.6-cent price. First, a ballot challenge or late withdrawal before September 9 is the one event that could actually crack it, and nobody knows better than McKay himself that Rhode Island ballot access can end up in a courtroom; as of August 25, 2026, the sources show no sign of one. Second, an organized write-in campaign surfacing in Rhode Island coverage in early September 2026 would put a real number on the lone soft spot in the ballot-math argument, since a sole-candidate primary can still be contested on paper. Third, and mostly cosmetic, watch the Waters contract drain: its 3.8-cent ask still implies a live rival, and as the board catches up with the candidate list, the McKay bid should close on the ask without a single new fact about McKay. Absent all three, this one settles on September 9, 2026.
Hero illustration: OddsShopper, in the house collage style. Rhode Island State House photo by Kumar Appaiah, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0; photos cropped, toned, and composited.
Prices quoted are live Kalshi market prices as of August 25, 2026, 7:00 p.m. ET, and will keep moving until this market settles after the September 9, 2026 vote. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange (18+; availability varies by state). 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.
