Kalshi
PolymarketFlorida's 12th District: Bilirakis's Cash and the Seat's Lean Keep Overman a Long Shot
The Florida 12th District race 2026 puts Gus Bilirakis, the Republican who holds the seat, against Democrat Kimberly Overman, and the market rests on two gaps that the campaign has not closed: an incumbent defending a Republican-leaning seat, and a campaign account roughly eight times the size of his challenger's. Voters in the district decide it on November 3, 2026, with Branden Scrivener, who has no party affiliation, also on the ballot. The live board above carries each venue's current price for both parties.
Who Is Running in the Florida 12th District Race
The Division of Elections lists three candidates as Qualified for U.S. Representative in District 12: Bilirakis of the Republican Party of Florida, Overman of the Florida Democratic Party, and Scrivener, who files with no party affiliation. A second Republican, Samantha June, withdrew, and Darren McAuley lost the Democratic primary. The Clerk of the House's member data, published October 1, 2026, records Gus M. Bilirakis as the Republican member for the 12th, elected November 5, 2024 and sworn in January 3, 2025.
Bilirakis reached the general election without a contest: Ballotpedia records that the Republican primary was canceled once no other Republican remained in the race. Overman's nomination was closer. On August 18, 2026 she took 21,667 votes, 52.7% of the Democratic primary, to McAuley's 19,450, a margin of 2,217 votes, which means a little under half of her party's primary voters chose someone else. In the profile she submitted to Ballotpedia she describes herself as a former Hillsborough County Commissioner, a small business owner and a retired financial advisor, and puts household costs, access to health care and voting rights at the center of her campaign. Scrivener, who gives his age as 27 in his own profile, runs on term limits and changes to how Congress is funded and sized.
The 12th on this ballot is not the district Bilirakis won two years ago. The Florida Senate records that the 2026 congressional plan passed in HB 1-D on April 29, 2026 and was signed into law on May 4, 2026, so every Florida House race this year is run on the new lines.
Why the Florida 12th District Price Favors Bilirakis
What the price is saying is that an incumbent on a seat with a clear Republican lean, facing a challenger with little money, is the heavy favorite without being a certainty. On October 29, 2026, Kalshi had the Republican Party at 84%, level with Polymarket's 84%, and Polymarket had the Democratic Party at 16%, two points under Kalshi's 18%. Put plainly, the venues give Overman about a one-in-six chance, which makes her a long shot the market has not written off.
The record behind that price starts with Bilirakis's last race. The Clerk of the House's official statistics show him winning the 12th on November 5, 2024 with 306,487 votes to 124,949 for Rock Aboujaoude Jr., a share of a little over 70% on the 2024 lines. The partisan baseline Ballotpedia lists for the district heading into 2026 is softer than that result: an R+7 on Cook's Partisan Voter Index, the 175th most Republican district in the country, and a 2024 presidential vote of 57.2% for Donald Trump to 41.8% for Kamala Harris on The Downballot's figures. The market treats the gap between a seven-point lean and a forty-point personal margin as the space a challenger would have to cover, and prices the chance that she covers it at about one in six.
The professional raters sit on either side of the price. In Ballotpedia's table for October 27, 2026, the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections rate the race Solid Republican, while Sabato's Crystal Ball and Decision Desk rate it Likely Republican. Decision Desk had the race at Safe Republican from late July until that October 27 update, when it moved one step toward the Democrats. A price in the mid-80s is roughly where a split between Solid and Likely would land.
What the Florida 12th District Money and Trading Show
Money is the plainest reason the price is not closer. Federal Election Commission figures through October 14, 2026, as Ballotpedia tabulates them, show Bilirakis with $2.26M raised, $2.12M spent and $254K in cash, and Overman with $280K raised, $251K spent and $29.5K in cash. Scrivener had raised $8.2K and held $28. Bilirakis's cash on hand was about 8.6 times Overman's with less than three weeks to go, which leaves a challenger little to spend on reaching voters in the final stretch.
Outside groups have not changed that. Ballotpedia's satellite-spending table shows $60.6K spent in support of Bilirakis by a group called Affordable Florida and nothing spent for or against Overman. Neither party's House campaign committee appears in it.
The trading is active but not recent. As of October 29, 2026, Kalshi had cleared about 33.7K contracts on the race, 19.5K of them on the Democratic side and 14.2K on the Republican, and Polymarket had taken about $98.9K, $59.0K of it on the Democratic contract and $39.9K on the Republican. On both venues the cheaper Democratic contract has drawn more activity than the favorite's. The last 24 hours were quiet, about 955 contracts on Kalshi and $92 on Polymarket.
The price has drifted slightly toward Overman over the past week. Polymarket had the Democratic Party at 14% on October 23, 2026 and at 16% on October 29, 2026, while Kalshi's Republican price went from 85% to 84% over the same days. Two points in six days is a small move, and it lines up with Decision Desk's rating change rather than with any new poll.
The Case Against the Florida 12th District Read
The strongest case against the read is that the market is too generous to Overman. Two of the four raters put the race in their safest Republican category, Bilirakis won the 12th by more than 180,000 votes in 2024, and he enters the final week with about $225K more in cash than his challenger. A reader who holds that view would say a seat Cook and Inside Elections call Solid belongs in the low 90s, and that Polymarket's 16% Democratic price on October 29, 2026 is the premium long-shot contracts tend to carry rather than a judgment about this district, which would mean the Republican side is priced too low rather than the race too close.
The other side has its own case. The district is new, its R+7 lean is close to that of seats the market treats as competitive elsewhere in Florida, Decision Desk has just moved it, and Overman has held elected office before. No public poll of the race appears on Ballotpedia's page as of October 29, 2026, so neither the price nor the ratings rest on a measurement of these two candidates against each other.
The market's answer is that the lean, the incumbency and the money all point the same way, and that a one-in-six chance is what remains when a challenger has none of the three. That answer would be tested quickly by a poll showing a single-digit race.
What Changes the Florida 12th District Read
The read is that incumbency and money carry Bilirakis on a seat that leans his way. It would be wrong if the evidence shows the new district voting closer than its baseline:
• A public poll: none is listed for the race as of October 29, 2026. A survey showing Overman within single digits would cut against the price; a wide Bilirakis lead would support it.
• The ratings: Ballotpedia updates its table weekly. A move by Cook or Inside Elections from Solid to Likely Republican would put all four raters off their safest category; a Decision Desk move back to Safe would support the price.
• Outside money: a party committee or allied group spending for Overman in the last week, which the satellite table did not show as of October 29, 2026.
• Early voting: the mandatory early-voting period runs through October 31, 2026, and counties may add optional days.
• Election night and the count: polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time on November 3, 2026, and a voted mail ballot must reach the Supervisor of Elections by 7 p.m. that day. County official returns are due by noon on November 16, and the Elections Canvassing Commission certifies the official returns by 8 a.m. on November 17, 2026.
When the Florida 12th District Market Resolves
The two venues settle the same question on different tests. Kalshi lists the race under its KXHOUSERACE-FL12-26 contracts and resolves the Republican contract Yes if the House member sworn in for FL-12 for the term beginning in 2027 is a Republican, and the Democratic contract on the same test; it lists an expected settlement of January 4, 2027 and allows accelerated determination once a consensus of media organizations projects the winner. Polymarket resolves on the party of the candidate who wins the seat in the November 3, 2026 election as shown by a consensus of credible reporting, falling back on official results reported by the Federal Election Commission if the outcome is ambiguous. Party is the ballot-listed affiliation, and a winner with neither major-party label, which would include Scrivener, counts with the party he most recently said he would caucus with.
Related Florida Markets
Voters in the 12th also choose a governor and a senator on the same ballot: the Florida governor odds and the Florida Senate odds carry those races. Among the state's other House races, the Florida 13th District odds follow a Republican incumbent on a seat with a similar lean whose Democratic challenger has kept pace in cash, which is the difference the market prices, and the Florida 11th District odds follow an open Republican seat where the cash gap is wider still. The Florida elections page collects every race the state's markets price.
