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Local Political Expert — Elections Forecasting & Political Risk

Mercor Mercor Part-timeRemote
Posted Oct 3, 2026 · ✓ Still open — checked 6 hours ago

Quick facts

Type
Part-time
Location
Remote
Platform
Mercor — 291 open jobs
Typical pay at Mercor
$42–180/hour · median $85 (135 jobs on our site)
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Free to apply — never pay to get AI training work

About the work

We are building expert-authored forecasting and research data used to evaluate and improve AI models on real political and financial analysis. Each task asks a practitioner to reason from a fixed evidence cutoff — no hindsight — and document the judgment a strong analyst would have made at that moment.

This role covers political report authorship: elections, polling, and political-risk events.

What you will do

Author point-in-time political reports and forecasts from a stated evidence cutoff

Make and document directional judgments about polling, win probabilities, and market-implied odds

Explain the causal mechanism behind an event's expected political and market impact

Review model-generated analyses and grade them against your own standard

Who we are looking for

Local political analysts with hands-on experience on specific races in swing states: current or upcoming Senate, governor, or statewide contests, or recent cycles in the same state

On-the-ground knowledge of the electorate, the candidates, and the local political environment, from roles such as university political scientist, state or regional pollster, state-level campaign or party analytics staff, or state political-risk analyst

A record of making live judgments about polling, win probabilities, or odds in those races — not retrospective commentary

Strong polling literacy and causal event analysis

Typically 8+ years of direct experience, or unusually strong evidence of equivalent performance

Backgrounds we look at first: political science departments and survey research centers at universities in the target states, state and regional pollsters, state-level campaign and party analytics teams, and decision desks or race-ratings outlets with state-specific coverage. National forecasting or political-risk experience is welcome when paired with deep knowledge of a specific state. Brand-name experience is a strong first-pass signal but is not a hard requirement — direct experience and performance on the work sample determine who qualifies.

Not a fit

Profiles whose experience is mainly international politics, geopolitics, or country risk, with little or no work on US races

Analysts who have not worked on a current or recent US race in the state they would cover

Pure communications or journalism profiles without demonstrated forecasting, polling, or probabilistic judgment

Academic profiles whose work is purely theoretical, with no analysis of live races

Point-in-time discipline

Every task is graded on reasoning from the stated cutoff without hindsight, data leakage, confidential information, or material non-public information.

We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request.

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About Mercor

Mercor is an AI-driven hiring marketplace that places professionals on contracts with leading AI labs. You apply once, complete a short AI interview, and are then matched to open projects.