Ken Griffin backed 31 candidates. Polymarket says 20 are underdogs

Short answer: Ken Griffin wrote personal checks to 31 candidates' own campaigns this cycle, and Polymarket makes 20 of the 29 still on the ballot underdogs a week before November 3. Two more are already gone. Line his slate up against Elon Musk, George and Alex Soros, Reid Hoffman and Jeff Yass, and the Citadel founder's picks are the worst-priced by a wide margin: we expect about 2 in 3 to lose.

TL;DR: We pulled every 2025-26 FEC contribution filed under five mega-donors' names, kept only checks to candidates' own campaigns, and priced each race with Polymarket's live seat markets on Oct 27. Griffin's 31 candidates add up to about 10.5 expected wins, a 66% expected loss rate, against 31% for Musk, 28% for the Soros family and 17% for Hoffman. Griffin also paid both sides of one race: $14,000 to Republican Scott Singer and $7,000 to Democrat Jared Moskowitz, who face each other in Florida's 25th.

Key numbers

What	Number	Source, checked Oct 27 2026
Griffin: candidates paid directly	31 ($186,500)	FEC Schedule A
Griffin picks still running and under 50% on Polymarket	20 of 29	Polymarket seat markets
Griffin picks under 20%	14	Polymarket
Expected loss rate, Griffin / Yass / Musk / Soros / Hoffman	66% / 57% / 31% / 28% / 17%	Our estimate from FEC + Polymarket
Griffin's total itemized 2025-26 giving in our pull (mostly super PACs)	$32.4M	FEC Schedule A
Polymarket: Democrats take the House	91.5%	Polymarket

Griffin bought the swing seats, and the swing seats are sinking

Griffin's direct checks read like a list of the most endangered Republicans in the House: Tom Kean (NJ-7, 5.5%), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-1, 7%), David Valadao (CA-22, 8.5%), Juan Ciscomani (AZ-6, 11.5%), Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie (PA-8 and PA-7, 13.5% each), Gabe Evans (CO-8, 14.5%) and Zach Nunn (IA-3, 15%).

Add the challengers he backed, Kevin Lincoln (CA-13, 3.5%), Tano Tijerina (TX-28, 5.5%), Eric Flores (TX-34, 11.5%), Laurie Buckhout (NC-1, 16%), and Caroline Shinkle in Manhattan's NY-12 at 0.75%, and you get 14 candidates the market prices under 20%.

His Senate picks are no shelter. John Sununu in New Hampshire sits at 8.5%, Jon Husted in Ohio at 30.5% and Susan Collins in Maine at 38.5%.

The rest of the billionaire field is backing favorites

Run the same join on the other big names and the picture flips. Musk's 22 direct checks, almost all written in March 2025, went to safe Freedom Caucus-style seats: Brandon Gill (TX-26, 99.3%), Eric Burlison (MO-7, 97.7%), Mary Miller (IL-15, 96.3%). Only three of his still-running picks are underdogs: Darrell Issa in a redrawn CA-48 (6.5%), Derrick Van Orden (WI-3, 22.5%) and Mike Collins against Jon Ossoff in Georgia (3.95%).

Musk's two already-dead checks are telling too. He paid both Buddy Carter and Mike Collins, rivals in the same Georgia Senate primary, and Carter lost on May 19. He also paid Marjorie Taylor Greene, who resigned from Congress on Jan 5.

On the left, George and Alex Soros paid 16 candidates. Two lost primaries (Tom Malinowski in NJ-11, Bridget Brink in MI-7), and two more are underdogs (Scott Colom in Mississippi at 14%, Tom Perriello in VA-5 at 36%). Reid Hoffman's 15 picks are the safest slate we measured: one primary loss (Liam Elkind, NY-12) and one long shot, independent Seth Bodnar in Montana at 7.8%.

Follow the money: why the best trader in finance has the worst slate

This is not a stock-picking failure, and that is the interesting part. Griffin runs Citadel, and his checks went where a House majority is actually decided. Polymarket gives Democrats a 91.5% chance of the House, so every Republican in a competitive seat is priced as a likely casualty. Musk and the Democratic donors mostly paid people who were never in danger.

Our read: Musk's direct checks buy loyalty from members who will be in the room next year. Griffin's buy a seat at the table if the map breaks the GOP's way. One is an investment in winners. The other is a hedge on a crash, and Griffin even hedged inside the hedge: $14,000 to Scott Singer and $7,000 to Jared Moskowitz in the same Florida race, where Polymarket has Moskowitz's party at 75%.

He has one real scalp already. Griffin gave $7,000 to Ed Gallrein, who beat Rep. Thomas Massie 55-45 in Kentucky's May primary and now sits at 94.5%.

The one race where the billionaires collide

Virginia's 5th is the only general-election seat in our data where two of these donors are on opposite sides. Musk paid Republican John McGuire $6,600. George and Alex Soros paid Democrat Tom Perriello $14,000, and Perriello won his August primary with over 76%. Polymarket has McGuire's party at 63.5%, so on today's prices Musk wins the head-to-head.

How we did it (run it yourself)

• FEC Schedule A, 2026 cycle, by contributor name and hometown (Miami and Chicago for Griffin, Austin and Lakeway for Musk, New York for the Soroses, Anacortes and Menlo Park for Hoffman, Bala Cynwyd for Yass), deduped by FEC record id. WinRed and ActBlue pass-through rows were dropped, since the same money shows up again at the campaign.
• Only gifts to candidates' own campaign committees count. Super PAC and party money is far bigger ($32.4M for Griffin, $112M for Musk in our pull) but has no single race to price.
• Each candidate's office and district comes from the FEC candidate master file. Odds are Polymarket's "Will the [party] win the [seat]" markets, pulled Oct 27. Primary losers, dropouts and resignations count as losses. Senators not up until 2028 or 2030 are left out.
• "Expected loss rate" and "dollars on likely losers" are our estimates: each gift weighted by the market's chance that its candidate loses. Prediction markets are prices, not results. Not financial advice.

Miriam Adelson made only two direct candidate gifts, so we left her out. Peter Thiel's slate has its own breakdown in Peter Thiel funded 38 House Republicans.

What this means for you

If you give, organize or trade on these races, download the CSV below: 137 donor-candidate rows with the gift, the date, the candidate's status and the live market price. Sort by odds and you will see where big money is about to be written off. On Nov 4, score each slate against the real results. More of this lives on our politics desk, next to AI super PACs vs the odds, House odds vs FEC money and the rest of the news.

If you need the same watch on a company (its federal contracts, lobbying and filings flagged as they land), Company Watch runs it for $99 a month, and we keep fixing it at no extra cost until it does what it promises.

Sources

• FEC, individual contributions, 2026 cycle (Griffin, Musk, Soros, Hoffman, Yass), pulled Oct 27 2026
• FEC, 2026 candidate master file, Oct 27 2026
• Polymarket, House seat, Senate race and control markets, Oct 27 2026
• AJC, Gallrein defeats Massie; Carter misses Georgia Senate runoff, May 2026
• Michigan Public, Collins will challenge Ossoff, Jun 16 2026
• Ballotpedia, Moskowitz and Singer in Florida's redrawn 25th, Aug 24 2026
• 12 On Your Side, Virginia's 2026 primary results (Perriello), Aug 4 2026
• NPR, Malinowski concedes to Mejia, Feb 10 2026
• Ballotpedia, Lawrence defeats Brink in MI-7, Aug 5 2026
• Fox 5 NY, NY-12 Democratic primary (Lasher), Jun 23 2026
• WTTW, Donna Miller wins IL-2 primary, Mar 17 2026
• Atlanta News First, Greene's seat vacant Jan 5, Jan 6 2026
• Cowboy State Daily, Frank Chapman drops out, Jul 23 2026
• Ballotpedia, Montana Senate general election field (Bodnar), Jul 14 2026