Kalshi Politics — Mispricing Audit (v4, archetype-targeted)

Run date 2026-08-14 · Horizon 45 days (markets closing by 2026-09-28) · Capital $2,500 · Category focus: Politics · Methodology: Keel v4 (Stage-0 allowlist, probability-before-price, precedent-fed)

Picks

Rejects logged

Deployed

$55.44

Cash

97.8%

The week in one paragraph. The v4 universe was genuinely thin: of 117 allowlisted series, only 47 open markets close inside the 45-day horizon, and just two survived the hard mechanical cuts (live volume ≥ 500, spread ≤ 5¢, not pinned at 0/100). Nearly every big Tier-1 series (SAVE Act, admin-departure ladders, ballot measures) closes in 2027. Of the two survivors, Hegseth-out is a band reject on both sides, leaving one deployable trade: fading the residual Pirro-firing bid ten days after Trump conspicuously did not fire her. Cash is the position this week — 97.8% — which the resolved record says is the correct posture in an efficient slate, not a failure to find edge.

Pick 1 of 1 — BUY NO · KXPIRROOUT-26AUG-26SEP01

Will Jeanine Pirro announce her departure as U.S. Attorney for D.C. before Sep 1, 2026?

BUY NO @ 88¢ limit MEDIUM conviction archetype: multi-news-other (Tier 2) band: 85–89¢ thin favorite → half caps cluster: pirro-departure closes 2026-09-01 03:59 UTC

Prob: 7% YES pre-market → 9% YES final (blended toward a moderately liquid book at 13.5¢ mid) → NO = 91% vs 87–88¢ entry. Resolver deductions: −2 loose announcement bar, −0.5 death/last-fair-price clause (total 2.5 pts, well under the 15-pt reject line).

Thesis. Classic post-blowup narrative hangover on a departure ladder. On Aug 3 Trump publicly said Pirro "folded like an umbrella" over her office's Reflecting Pool court filing, summoned her to the White House — and affirmatively did not fire her; she did not offer her resignation ("I haven't made a determination" — Trump, per NBC 8/4). WaPo (8/8) kept the "on the outs" story alive, but ten days have now passed with no removal, no resignation, and — decisively, per the Lutnick precedent — no successor floated anywhere in the reporting. She is Senate-confirmed (Aug 2025), a decades-long ally, and still listed as U.S. Attorney by DOJ. The YES bid printed 71¢ intraday on Aug 3 and has decayed 32→29→28→22→23→18→20→20→18→13 on no new adverse facts: residual bid is hangover, and the market is still paying ~13.5% for an announcement inside 17 days.

Why not HIGH conviction. The rules bar here is the loose one: rules_secondary says the market "resolves based on when the departure is publicly announced or officially communicated, regardless of the effective date." A single Truth Social post naming a replacement resolves this YES overnight, and the president is genuinely angry on the record. That is a live way to be wrong — MEDIUM, half-capped, thin-favorite sizing.

Precedents consulted: KXKASHOUT-26APR-JUN01 resolved NO — "anonymous 'it's only a matter of time' sourcing is not a resolution event… sell the spike into the news cycle rather than buying it" (that rung was 67% and died). KXLUTNICKOUT-26JUL01 resolved NO — "absent a named successor, price any single month near the base rate." KXHEGSETHOUT-26APR-JUN01/JUL01 both NO — fury without an affirmative White House signal never converts. And this run verified KXPIRROOUT-26AUG-26AUG05/06/07 all settled NO in the days immediately after the blowup itself.

Resolver profile. Resolver: Kalshi, off any credible public announcement or official communication (White House, DOJ, or Pirro herself) by market close Sep 1 03:59 UTC. Boundaries: announcement counts even if effective later (−2 on NO); temporary leave/suspension/recusal does NOT count; death → last-fair-price discretion (−0.5). The series family's resolution record shows the resolver waits for the actual announcement — rumor cycles have never settled these YES.

Entry context (fetched 2026-08-14). YES 13/14 (NO 86/87), 24h volume 2,342, OI 34,348. Contra depth for NO buys: ~70 contracts at 87¢ + ~120 at 88¢ = 190 at or below the 88¢ limit → depth cap 63 contracts. 48h price check: −4¢ toward NO (with thesis, not chasing). Slippage at limit: ≤1¢. Not a continuous-number thesis (discrete announcement event). Volume < 5,000 → not specialist-dense.

Position sizes & limits

Market	Side	Limit	Contracts	Max cost	Max win	Cap binding
KXPIRROOUT-26AUG-26SEP01	NO	88¢	63	$55.44	$7.56	Depth cap (63 = ⅓ × 190 visible) < $75 MEDIUM thin-favorite half-cap
Total deployed				$55.44 (2.2%)		Cash $2,444.56 (97.8%) · reserve ≥10% ✓

EV for the record

Market	Entry	Model prob (side)	EV/contract	EV position	EV % of cost
KXPIRROOUT NO	88¢	91%	+3.0¢	+$1.89	+3.4%

Sizing is EV-agnostic per v4; EV shown for the record only. Thin-favorite economics: risking $55.44 to win $7.56 — one loss erases ~7 wins, which is exactly why the band carries half caps.

Cluster table

Cluster	Deployed leg	Runner-up legs
pirro-departure	KXPIRROOUT-26AUG-26SEP01 NO	None in-window (the Oct-1 rung closes outside the 45-day horizon)

Conviction exposure

Tier	Positions	Cost	% of capital	Cap
HIGH	0	$0	0%	15% ($375) / 7% in 85–89¢
MEDIUM	1	$55.44	2.2%	7% ($175) / 3% ($75) in 85–89¢
Cash	—	$2,444.56	97.8%	40–70% expected; more this week is a statement about the slate, not caution

Risk profile

Single-name risk: the entire deployed book is one thin-favorite leg. Worst case (Pirro announcement before Sep 1): −$55.44 (2.2% of capital). Best case: +$7.56.
The live way to be wrong: a Trump post or DOJ statement naming a replacement — the loose "announced or officially communicated" bar means it needs no effective date. That risk is why this is 91 and MEDIUM, not 96 and HIGH.
What would flip the read: any successor's name entering the reporting (the Lutnick tell), or a second public Trump escalation. Either → exit or write off; do not average down on a news-cycle name.
No correlation risk: one cluster, one leg, nothing else deployed.

Execution notes

Rest a NO limit at 88¢ (equivalently: sell into YES bids at ≥12¢). Expect ~70 contracts to fill near 87¢ and the remainder at 88¢; average fill ≈ 87.2¢.
Do not chase below 88¢ NO — at 89¢+ the edge is inside the model's error bars.
Book is thin at size: 63 contracts is the ⅓-of-visible-depth cap from the book actually fetched at 2026-08-14 ~17:00 UTC. Re-fetch depth before entry if executing later than +24h.
Market closes Sep 1 03:59 UTC; no early-exit plan needed at this size, but the flip conditions above override.

Rejects log (12)

Market	Archetype	Px	Reason
KXHEGSETHOUT-26APR-SEP01	multi-news-other	YES 4.8/5.1	deep-favorite band. Stage-2 survivor; pre-market YES 2.5% (strict `rules_secondary`: "must have an actual departure date and vacate the role"; active-conflict structural NO per 2× series precedents; no successor named; third consecutive rung just settled NO on Aug 1). NO entry ≈95¢ ≥ 90¢ reject line; YES is a <40¢ tail. Also specialist-dense (vol24h 7,290).
KXGOVTFULLFUND-26AUG-26SEP26	confirmation/enact	47/54	illiquid book: vol24h 183 < 500 hard floor; 7¢ spread also fails. Core-band price but the zero-volume cohort was negative-edge lifetime — hard skip.
KXKASHOUT-26APR-26SEP01	departure/ouster	4/5	illiquid (vol24h 340); NO would also be ≥95¢ deep favorite.
KXUSAIRANAGREEMENT-27-26SEP	scheduled-process	1/2	illiquid (vol24h 257); YES tail.
KXMAMDANIEO-26AUG15-T0	confirmation/enact	2/3	illiquid (vol24h 338).
KXIPOANTHROPIC-DATE-26SEP01	corporate-event	0/1	tail: YES ask 1¢; NO ≥95¢. No playable side despite 63k vol24h.
KXCOMPANYACTIONMERGER-27-26SEP01	corporate-event	3/4	tail: YES ask 4¢ mechanical cut despite 71k vol24h.
KXIMPEACH-26-SEP01	legal-action	0/1	tail: YES ask 1¢.
KXLEAVEMILLS-26NOV03-26SEP01	departure/ouster	2/6	illiquid (vol24h 255).
KXLEAVEPOWELLGOV-26SEP01	departure/ouster	1/3	illiquid (vol24h 234); Jul-1 precedent already pinned this near 0 — no edge either way.
KXLEAVELISACOOK-26SEP01	departure/ouster	2/3	illiquid (vol24h 133).
KXIPOOPENAI-26SEP01	corporate-event	0/2	illiquid (vol24h 106); YES tail.

Existing pick KXCRYPTOSTRUCTURE-26JAN-SEP is outside the v4 allowlist and was not re-touched. No cluster runner-ups and no outside-universe research this run.

Universe & method notes

Stage 0: 117 allowlisted series from targets.json (generated 2026-08-14 16:06 UTC) → 47 live open markets closing by 2026-09-28 (fetched per-series from the public API, not the mirror — the mirror showed 119 rows of which many were stale-status) → 2 survivors after the mechanical cuts. The slate is structurally thin because the high-OI Tier-1 series (KXSAVEACT, KXTRUMPADMINLEAVE, KXSTATEBALLOTMEASURE, KXRETIREMM…) all close 2027.
Probability before price: both pre-market numbers (Pirro YES 7%, Hegseth YES 2.5%) were committed after rules + precedents + news and before opening books or candlesticks; blends and entry context recorded above.
Precedent store: 12 departure/ouster rows retrieved; 4 rows directly on the two candidate series. Two new rows written back this run (Pirro Aug-5/6/7 blowup-week NOs; Hegseth Aug-1 third-consecutive NO) — see precedents.json.
Zero-ish deployment is the output, not a bug: one thin-favorite leg at 2.2% of capital, 97.8% cash. An efficient week under v4 rules.