Warren, Curtis Demand Election-Contract Answers by Nov. 3

By Daniel Okafor

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, sent an Oct. 28 letter to Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour and Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan asking how the companies stop candidates, campaign staff and others with material nonpublic information from trading election contracts. The senators requested written answers by Election Day, Nov. 3.

The action was bipartisan. “We are particularly troubled by election-related event contracts,” Warren and Curtis wrote. “Event contracts tied to elections receive prominent coverage and are treated by some observers as indicators of political momentum. There are also documented cases of candidates betting on their own races, which undermines the overall integrity of the American electoral process.”

What did the senators put in the letter?

The letter cited candidates who traded on their own contests on Kalshi, including a February 2026 California gubernatorial race. It also cited research alleging wash trading and volume manipulation on Polymarket and an NPR investigation in which campaign insiders said they traded ahead of polling releases.

Warren and Curtis wrote: “The identification of isolated instances of improper trading does not demonstrate that these markets are adequately protected. Instead, it raises serious questions about how much similar activity may be going undetected.” Their Nov. 3 request makes the platforms’ candidate, campaign-staff and trading-integrity controls the central operational question ahead of Warren’s chairmanship.

For both operators, the immediate obligation is to explain how their controls work and whom they cover. For Congress, the issue is whether those controls address trading by everyone with material nonpublic information, rather than only the candidates and staff cited by the senators.

What are the platforms saying?

Kalshi’s head of enforcement, Robert DeNault, told Business Insider that the company “proactively blocks candidates and campaign staff from trading to protect market integrity.” Polymarket did not respond to that request for comment.

Kalshi has therefore described a public candidate-and-campaign-staff prohibition while the senators seek a broader account of safeguards. Polymarket enters the deadline without a public response to their questions, leaving its trading-integrity controls open to scrutiny from the committee Warren is preparing to lead.

Why does this matter to crypto?

Polymarket is a crypto-native venue that settled U.S. access through a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-registered exchange after years offshore. Kalshi operates as a designated contract market under the same federal agency. Both sit in the orbit of the Senate Banking Committee, which Warren is preparing to chair.

During 2026, the CFTC under Chairman Michael S. Selig has defended the platforms against state gambling laws. The agency sued Wisconsin, New York and others to assert exclusive federal jurisdiction over event contracts on registered exchanges. Warren’s inquiry provides a congressional counterweight to that position, and an aide described the prediction-market sector as a “Wild West.”

The dispute leaves event-contract enforcement divided between a federal regulator defending preemption and a Senate panel preparing to examine market integrity. How the committee handles the Oct. 28 letter could shape the boundary between CFTC oversight of registered exchanges and state gambling enforcement.

Could Warren’s chairmanship change market structure?

Warren has been one of crypto’s sharpest critics on Capitol Hill. She opposed the CLARITY Act market-structure bill, which failed a Senate cloture vote 49-50 on Sept. 15. Analysts have argued that a Democratic Congress leaves little path for a Republican rewrite, while House Democrats are sketching their own package with a bigger role for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Her aide’s broader agenda also includes affordability legislation, a push to cap credit-card interest rates, AI-chip export controls, and oversight of Trump administration officials, Wall Street CEOs, Big Tech executives and anyone tied to the Trump family’s crypto ventures.

That agenda does not settle how the committee would police event contracts. It does give Warren subpoena power and the Banking gavel as the question shifts from whether Trump-era regulators will keep clearing the way to whether the letter becomes hearings that rewrite election- and event-contract policing. The immediate deadline is Nov. 3; whether the platforms’ answers become hearings will determine if congressional oversight enters a new phase.