Polymarket
KalshiTX-35's New Lines Voted Republican for President, and the Market Still Leans the Open Seat Democratic
TX-35 House race odds rest on a district that kept its number and lost almost everything else. The 2025 map moved the seat out of Travis and Hays counties and rebuilt it around a quarter of Bexar County plus all of Guadalupe, Wilson and Karnes counties, and the market treats the open seat as a Democratic lean even though the Republican presidential ticket carried the new lines by ten points in 2024. What the price is saying is that the Senate race on that same ballot, which was far closer, is the better guide to a House race with no incumbent. Texas voters decide it on November 3, 2026, with early voting from October 19 to October 30; the live board above carries the current number.
How the 2025 map remade TX-35
Under the previous congressional plan, PlanC2193, TX-35 ran from Travis County to Bexar County: 23% of Travis County, 57% of Hays County, 16% of Comal County and 15% of Bexar County, on the Texas Legislative Council's population tables of August 18, 2025. PlanC2333, the plan the 89th Legislature enacted in its second called session of 2025, is the plan the Council lists as in effect for the 2026 elections, and it keeps only the Bexar piece. The new TX-35 holds 26% of Bexar County, 529,818 people, which is roughly seven in ten of its 766,987 residents, plus all of Guadalupe County (172,706), Wilson County (49,753) and Karnes County (14,710). Travis, Hays and Comal are gone entirely, so the Travis and Hays share of the old district is not part of this race at all.
The new counties come from other seats. Under PlanC2193, Karnes and Wilson counties and 40% of Guadalupe County sat in TX-15, and the other 60% of Guadalupe sat in TX-28 alongside a slice of Bexar. Bexar itself is now split four ways, among TX-20, TX-21, TX-23 and TX-35. The electorate changes with the lines: on the Council's tables the new district is 57.1% Hispanic and 31.3% Anglo on the 2020 Census, against 55.1% and 26.2% under the old lines, and the Spanish-surname share of registered voters rises from 34.9% to 42.4%. Registration inside the new lines was 511,254 at the November 5, 2024 general election, with 303,030 ballots cast, a 59.3% turnout that sits above the old district's 54.8%.
The sitting member is not on this ballot. The Clerk of the House's member list, published October 1, 2026, still lists Greg Casar, a Democrat from Austin sworn in on January 3, 2025, as the member for TX-35, and the Council notes that members elected under the old plan represent those districts until the next Congress begins in January 2027. The Texas Secretary of State's candidate list shows Casar filed instead for District 37, which PlanC2333 draws entirely inside Travis County, and he won that Democratic nomination on March 3, 2026 with 80.75% of the vote. The new TX-35 is therefore an open seat, and Ballotpedia lists no incumbent among its candidates.
What the TX-35 price is saying
The 2024 returns inside the new lines are where the read starts. On November 5, 2024, the Republican presidential ticket carried the new TX-35 by 54.6% to 44.2%, but the Senate race on the same ballot was much closer, 50.6% Republican to 46.8% Democratic, with the Libertarian at 2.5%. Every other statewide race on the Council's table landed nearer the presidential result than the Senate one: the Railroad Commission race went 53.1% to 41.4% for the Republican, and two Supreme Court races went 55.7% to 44.3% and 54.9% to 45.1%. Under the old lines the same presidential race went 65.8% Democratic, which is why a number Democrats held comfortably under the old lines is a contest in 2026.
The market treats TX-35 as the Senate-race version of this district rather than the presidential one. In 2024 the Republican floor inside these lines was a four-point Senate win and the ceiling a ten-point presidential win, so a board with the Democrats ahead says the venues expect the 2026 House vote to land below that floor, in a seat with no incumbent on either line. That is a bigger claim than the rating outlets make. As listed by Ballotpedia on October 15, 2026, the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections and Sabato's Crystal Ball all rated the race Lean Republican on October 13, 2026, and Decision Desk HQ rated it a Toss-up.
The nominees came out of crowded primaries. Johnny C. Garcia, a deputy sheriff from San Antonio according to his filing, finished second of four in the March 3 Democratic primary and then beat Maureen Galindo in the May 26, 2026 runoff with 63.84% of 20,391 votes. Carlos De La Cruz of Universal City, who filed on December 1, 2025 and listed his occupation as retired, finished second of eleven in the Republican primary and won the May 26 runoff over John Lujan with 57.61% of 32,852 votes. The Secretary of State's general-election list carries those two names and no third. More voters took a Democratic primary ballot for this seat than a Republican one on March 3, 54,856 to 47,129, while the May 26 runoffs ran the other way.
The price has moved ahead of the ratings rather than with them. Polymarket's Democratic contract traded from 46.5% on August 7, 2026 to 71.5% on September 23, 2026, while Cook's move from Likely Republican to Lean Republican first appears in Ballotpedia's September 29, 2026 update. As of October 15, 2026 the best price on the Democratic Party was 60%, on Polymarket, with Kalshi at 61%; the best price on the Republican Party was 41%, also on Polymarket. Both venues list the contract, with about $236K traded across the two, which is a thin board for a seat that both parties' outside groups are contesting.
Those outside groups are close to even. As listed by Ballotpedia from Federal Election Commission filings on October 15, 2026, groups independent of the campaigns had reported $2.6M spent supporting Garcia and $2.35M supporting De La Cruz. The one public poll Ballotpedia lists, a Normington, Petts & Associates survey of 500 likely voters taken from August 27, 2026 to August 31, 2026 and sponsored by House Majority PAC, had De La Cruz at 45% and Garcia at 44% with 11% unsure, which is a tie inside its stated 4.4-point margin of error rather than a lead for either side.
The case against the TX-35 read
The strongest case against the read is the map itself. Every statewide Republican on the 2024 ballot carried the new TX-35, by margins from 3.8 points in the Senate race to 13 points in a Court of Criminal Appeals race, and the Senate race is the outlier on that list, not the baseline. No other Democrat on the November 5, 2024 ballot reached the 46.8% the Democratic Senate candidate won inside these lines; the next best was 45.1%, in a Supreme Court race. That means a Democratic House win needs to match that best case and then find the votes that even it did not, in a district with no Democratic incumbent to carry them.
A reader who holds this view also has the outside signals on their side. Three of the four rating outlets Ballotpedia tracks still had the seat leaning Republican on October 13, 2026, and the only public poll, sponsored by House Majority PAC, had the Republican one point ahead. The Republican runoff on May 26 drew 32,852 voters against 20,391 for the Democratic runoff, which says more about who was motivated by a contested nomination than about November, but it cuts the other way from the March 3 primary count. On this view the board is a thin market reading a national mood into a seat where every 2024 statewide result but one ran Republican by nearly ten points or more, and a $236K board can sit well away from the ratings for weeks without anyone large enough to close the gap.
What changes the TX-35 read
The read is wrong if the House vote inside these lines lands where the presidential vote did rather than where the Senate vote did. The dated tests before that answer arrives:
• Early voting: in-person early voting runs October 19 to October 30, 2026, and the Secretary of State lists October 23 as the last day a ballot-by-mail application can be received; this is the first measure of whether the 2026 electorate resembles 2024's, when 303,030 of the 511,254 registered voters inside these lines cast a ballot.
• Pre-General campaign reports: congressional committees file Pre-General reports with the Federal Election Commission by October 22, 2026, covering money through October 14; a late shift in outside spending toward one nominee is the clearest money signal left.
• Race ratings: a move by Cook, Inside Elections or Sabato's Crystal Ball from Lean Republican to Toss-up would bring the ratings to the market; a move back to Likely Republican would leave the board alone against all four outlets.
• New public polling: a survey from a sponsor without a stake in either party would be the first independent read on the race since the August 31 poll.
• Election night: November 3, 2026, when both venues can begin to settle once media organizations project the winner.
When the TX-35 market resolves
Texas votes on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, under PlanC2333. Kalshi's contract resolves Yes for the party of the House member sworn in for TX-35 for the term beginning in 2027, names the Library of Congress as its settlement source, allows accelerated determination once a consensus of media organizations projects the winner, and closes after the swearing-in. Polymarket's resolves on the party of the candidate who wins the seat, by ballot-listed affiliation, as called by a consensus of credible reporting, and falls back on official results reported to the Federal Election Commission if the call is ambiguous. Garcia is on the ballot as the Democratic nominee and De La Cruz as the Republican nominee, so on either venue a win by one of them settles the matching party contract Yes and the other No.
Related TX-35 markets
Bexar County is shared among four seats on the new map, and the TX-21 market page follows another of them. The counties TX-35 took in came from two seats that also have their own pages on their new lines: the TX-15 market page, which held Wilson and Karnes counties under the old plan, and the TX-28 market page, which held most of Guadalupe County. The statewide races on the same November 3 ballot are on the Texas Senate market page and the Texas governor market page, and every Texas House contract the site follows is listed on the elections hub and the politics hub.
