CFTC uses FEC payroll data to screen candidates from election markets

Warren and Curtis sent their letter to Tarek Mansour and Shayne Coplan on a Thursday in late October, and the opening line was not subtle. The senators wanted to know how many election-related transactions had escaped detection. It was a reasonable question. The answer, at least in one documented case, was: at least two.

Mark Moran placed those two trades on January 27, 2026, on a market concerning his own Virginia Senate campaign. He had registered with his driver's license. He had been approved. He promoted the position on social media afterward, which is how Kalshi's compliance team found it. The violation was Rule 5.17(z). The penalty, after Moran declined settlement and stopped responding to correspondence, was a five-year ban and a fine of $6,229.30. Moran's account of events, offered on the Indian Gaming Association's New Normal podcast, includes the detail that the initial offer was a one-year suspension and an $800 fine. He says the number climbed after he refused to issue a public statement.

Kalshi's head of enforcement, Robert DeNault, told The Hill that the exchange uses Federal Election Commission payroll records to identify restricted traders. That is the mechanism the senators' letter did not have when it was written, and it is the mechanism worth examining. FEC payroll data captures people already on a campaign's books. It does not capture a candidate who has not yet filed, who is exploring a run, or who has filed in a state with a long pre-declaration window. Moran's case illustrates the gap: he was on the market before his campaign had a payroll to file.

The Warren-Curtis letter is bipartisan, which matters institutionally. It also cited alleged manipulation during the 2024 presidential election affecting roughly a third of the presidential market's trading volume. That figure came from Fortune's reporting, not the CFTC's own record, and its legal weight at this stage is accordingly limited. But it gives the senators a factual predicate for demanding disclosure, and Kalshi and Polymarket will have to respond in writing. Those responses, once they exist, become part of whatever enforcement or legislative record follows.

The CFTC's existing jurisdiction here is not hypothetical. Under the Commodity Exchange Act, CFTC-regulated designated contract markets are required to have rules that prohibit fraud, manipulation, and abusive trading practices. 7 U.S.C. § 7(d)(3). The question the senators are actually pressing — whether existing rules are adequate to detect the conduct they describe — is precisely the question the CFTC's own designated contract market core principles are designed to answer. Whether the Commission has made any formal determination about the adequacy of Kalshi's or Polymarket's current surveillance systems is not on the public record. That gap, more than the letter itself, is where this story is heading.