According to reporting from Semafor, the prediction market Kalshi sought to clean up apparent messes on Friday after some of its influencer relationships essentially made it look like it was paying to distribute conspiracy content online. Posts have now been removed at Kalshi’s request. However, similar sponsored posts associated with Kalshi’s competitor, Polymarket, do not appear to be disappearing. The news event that triggered the issue was the Los Angeles mayoral election. In California politics, there’s this concept known to locals as the red mirage, in which Republicans tend to look dominant on election nights—as if our deep blue state is finally having the change of heart much of America apparently fantasizes about. Republicans very much did look dominant on election night, owing to the fact that Republicans’ voting patterns tend to get their votes counted first. But it’s been a few days since the primary on June 2, and Republicans’ hopes for their preferred outcomes are slowly fading. That’s making people suspicious. And some of those people have branding relationships with the big prediction markets.
Notice how the mail-in ballots that come in last second always end up voting Democrat Totally a coincidence, nothing to see here https://t.co/6bYH6kvLov — Kangmin Lee | 이강민 (@kangminlee) June 4, 2026 For instance, right-wing influencer Kangmin Lee posted an embed of a Polymarket post on X, and wrote “Notice how the mail-in ballots that come in last second always end up voting Democrat,” adding, “Totally a coincidence, nothing to see here.” At the bottom of that post it says “Paid partnership.”
Here’s another, similar sponsored post, this time from right-wing commentator Benny Johnson: The public has so little faith in California’s elections that they just assume Democrats are going to dramatically rig it with questionable ballot counting DAYS after Election Day https://t.co/yXOaY1HEUP — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 4, 2026 “The public has so little faith in California’s elections that they just assume Democrats are going to dramatically rig it with questionable ballot counting DAYS after Election Day,” Johnson says. Johnson is wisely hedging by attributing the conspiracy theorizing to others, and he’s also not entirely wrong about the public’s attitude toward elections in California. It’s common to have to wait weeks for election results here in California, which leads to this horrible phenomenon where you painstakingly figure out how you want to vote on dozens of issues, lose track of who or what you voted for, and then when the results come in—perhaps sometime the following month—you don’t care anymore. There’s no convincing reason it should be this way, and everyone I know hates it.
But crucially, it doesn’t seem (so far) to have been the result of anyone tampering with the votes. It would appear that, bit by bit, the election night lock conservative mayoral candidate and ex-reality TV villain Spencer Pratt had on second place is loosening, and he may soon be overtaken completely by Nithya Raman, a progressive—not because the votes are changing, but because they’re being counted in slow motion. For unrelated reasons, only the first- and second-place candidates make it to the ballot in November. My estimate yesterday was that Raman needed to win what was left over Pratt by 12-13% . Today, after this batch (which she won by 21%), my estimate is that she has to win what is left over Pratt by 9-10%. So she is certainly on track. (image or embed) — Taniel (@taniel.bsky.social) June 5, 2026 at 5:24 PM This leads to incongruities: As of this writing, the latest vote tally shows Pratt with 28.2% of votes, and Raman with 24.9%. Nonetheless, over on Polymarket, Raman’s odds of advancing to the second round of voting are now at 95%, and Pratt’s are at 6%. That’s life in a deep blue city (Spencer Pratt says he will leave LA if he doesn’t become mayor, by the way).
Now, according to Semafor, Kalshi has requested that paid influencers remove posts “that sowed doubt about the integrity of the Los Angeles mayoral election.” Semafor says one such post, which has since been deleted, was from the account “Gunther Eagleman,” which belongs to a right-wing influencer named David J. Freeman, who has 1.7 million followers. Freeman wrote, “Is CA cheating to get Spencer Pratt out?” and embedded a Kalshi post, according to Semafor. One approving quote of that post—which is now broken—said, “Yes they are cheating.” Another since-deleted X post from right-wing influencer Matt Van Swol, read (again, according to Semafor) “I need someone to explain to me how EVERY SINGLE VOTE that comes in ‘late’ to California …nearly 100% of them…Go to ANYONE but Spencer Pratt.”
One can only assume that, upon seeing that these sponsored posts have been removed, conspiracy theorists are surely packing up their yarn walls and finding more productive ways to spend their time. Semafor says Kalshi and Polymarket fund “hundreds” of influencers. In a report on Friday, Politico found that, according to transaction records it had reviewed, an executive at Polymarket sent at least $350,000 to influencers via a personal PayPal account throughout last year and in January of this year. Regarding the now-deleted posts, Kalshi spokesperson Dani Lever told Semafor it had “asked these to be taken down, as they violate our affiliate marketing policies.” Polymarket did not get back to Semafor. Gizmodo also reached out to Polymarket for clarity about its policy regarding these sponsorships or any statement at all about the posts. We will update this article if we hear back.
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