Prediction Markets Say WNY's GOP Seats Are 'Solid-ish'

The Cook Political Report calls Langworthy's NY23 and Tenney's NY24 "Solid R." Morelle NY25 and Kennedy NY26 in Rochester and Buffalo are both "Solid". But the prediction markets tell a different story. Only two of those four seats are solid. The other two are solid-ish.

How Cook Political Report Sees It

The Cook Political Report is the industry standard for handicapping elections, and it puts both Western New York Republican seats in its safest category. Cook rates Nick Langworthy's NY-23 "Solid R," noting the Southern Tier "is reliably red" with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+10 and that Trump carried NY-23 by 21 points in 2024. Claudia Tenney's NY-24 gets the same "Solid R" label, sitting in a district that Trump carried by 23 points with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+11 — the most Republican-leaning seat in New York State. Cook's system uses a seven-point scale, and "Solid R" is the top tier — the same label it uses for the safest Democratic seats in the state, like Joe Morelle's Rochester NY-25 — "Solid D" and a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+10 — or Tim Kennedy's Buffalo NY-26 — "Solid D" and a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+11.

Where the Betting Markets Say "Solid-ish"

That's what makes the prediction market numbers interesting (see how prediction markets work). Kalshi's prediction market data currently prices Langworthy's odds of holding NY-23 at around 90% and Tenney's odds of holding NY-24 at around 89%. Compare that to the neighboring safe Democratic seats: Rochester's Joe Morelle (NY-25) and Buffalo's Tim Kennedy (NY-26) are both priced above 95% to hold.

Cook calls all four seats equally safe. The market doesn't. Morelle and Kennedy are solid. Langworthy and Tenney are solid-ish — clearly favored, clearly safe seats by any reasonable measure, but with enough daylight between the market price and Cook's top-tier label that "solid" isn't quite the right word.

A note on how thin these markets are. These are not high-volume contracts. NY-23's Kalshi market has traded roughly $14,600 in total lifetime volume; NY-24's has traded about $8,500. For comparison, Kalshi's national "which party controls the House" market alone has traded more than $23 million. That means these specific percentages should be interpreted as directional sentiment, rather than precise forecasting. Thin markets are exactly where pricing quirks and a handful of large trades can move the needle without reflecting real news.

Three Reasons for the Gap

Long-shot bias. Betting markets have a well-documented tendency to slightly overvalue underdogs and undervalue favorites, a pattern researchers call the favorite-longshot bias. It shows up in horse racing, sports betting, and political prediction markets alike, and it holds even in well-followed markets, though it's weakest where sophisticated traders dominate. Since Langworthy and Tenney are heavy favorites, this bias predicts exactly what we're seeing: the market slightly underprices the favorite's true odds.

The size of a possible wave. This is the more substantive explanation, and it's asymmetric. Democrats currently lead the generic congressional ballot by roughly 6 points as of July 2026 — the widest margin of the cycle, up from D+3.5 in January. A D+6 environment at this point historically correlates with Democratic gains of 15 to 25 House seats. Some individual polls show it considerably wider, with Trump's approval rating in the high 30s in several surveys, comparable to his standing before the 2018 wave cost Republicans 41 seats. That creates a real, if modest, scenario where a bigger-than-expected Democratic year reaches deep into Republican territory. There's no comparable "red wave hits deep-blue Rochester and Buffalo" scenario anywhere in the current conversation. So the market only has to price a small chance of one downside outcome, not two.

Idiosyncratic risk — this region has a track record. Western New York's congressional delegation has a documented history of sudden, largely unpredictable incumbent collapses, and we've covered this pattern before. Bill Paxon's career unraveled amid the mid-90s government shutdown fallout and a failed leadership coup. His eventual successor, Chris Lee, resigned the same day a Craigslist photo scandal broke, a seat he'd won with 55% of the vote. Chris Collins was forced out after an insider-trading conviction.

Langworthy's own political career started in Lee's district office. He managed Lee's 2008 campaign and ran his district operation before the scandal that ended Lee's career.

That doesn't mean anything is coming for Langworthy specifically. But it does mean the prediction market pricing a small amount of tail risk into a nominally "safe" seat in this stretch of Western New York isn't completely irrational speculation. It has a precedent, actually several precedents.

The Takeaway for WNY Voters

None of this means Langworthy or Tenney is in danger of losing re-election. Both seats remain solidly Republican by any reasonable measure. It would take a blue wave larger than anything seen so far in 2026 special elections to put either race in jeopardy. But the gap between Cook's ranking and the prediction market's price is a reminder that "safe" is a spectrum, not a binary, and that WNY's two Republican congressmen benefit from redder maps than most of their colleagues across the state.