About This Index

The Kalshi American Power Index (KPOW) measures the balance of political power between the Democratic and Republican parties. Blending together non-market data reflecting the present-day distribution of seats with market projections of future electoral outcomes and the risk of government dysfunction related to a shutdown, the KPOW offers a real-time signal capturing the shifts of each party's grip on power.

Index Methodology

The KPOW is composed of two fundamental sub-components: (1) a ‘current’ sub-component reflecting current political reality, and (2) a ‘future’ sub-component reflecting market-projected electoral outcomes and risks of shutdown-related dysfunction. In concert, these two sub-components create a holistic picture of political control and its ability to be exercised.The current sub-component anchors the KPOW to the current state of affairs, incorporating House and Senate control, seat margins, and the Presidency. The future sub-component reflects market expectations of future political power across the same dimensions, alongside a shutdown penalty imposed based on the risk or realization of a government shutdown, widely understood to undercut governing ability.Future elements track upcoming elections, roll out of the ‘future’ index component calculation as results become known, and are re-weighted weekly pursuant to a proprietary formula reflecting changes in market salience. Together, these data points form the Kalshi American Power Index.The index is bounded at +50D and +50R, where +50D represents maximum Democratic control, +50R represents maximum Republican control, and 0 reflects a roughly balanced distribution of power. A further breakdown of constituent components is provided below. Additional details on methodology are available upon request to Kalshi Research.

Why Now

The future of American politics is getting increasingly harder to see.Ask ten people where the U.S. is heading and you’ll get ten answers shaped more by media diet than reality. Polls reflect what people say they believe. Social media reflects what people in their bubbles want to believe. Neither reflects what will actually happen.The algorithms have quietly fractured us into information silos, each one certain it’s looking at the whole picture.So we’re left with more information than ever, and less clarity than ever. That’s a problem worth addressing.Today, we’re launching the Kalshi American Power Index (KPOW).KPOW aims to be the S&P 500 for politics. It does two things at once. It reads the current distribution of power (who actually holds the seats) and it folds in what Kalshi’s markets think about who will hold them next.People reach for proxies. Approval ratings, generic ballots, who controls the Senate this week. Each of these captures only a sliver, and none tell a comprehensive story of where things are heading. They’re snapshots, and politics isn’t a snapshot. It’s a wave that ebbs and flows, dynamically, permanently.The index captures the wave: a unified aggregate metric that updates as the world changes.

American Power Index

KPOW

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A first-in-class composite measure of political control. Updating in real-time from Kalshi's underlying prediction market data, the American Power Index draws on the wisdom of the crowd to answer a simple question: How is the balance of power in America changing?

KPOWAmerican Power Index