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Local Political Expert — Elections Forecasting & Political Risk
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About the Role
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'll 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
You're a Good Fit If You
- 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
Role Highlights
Pay & Payout
Independent contractor engagement. Apply via the link below - Mercor handles onboarding and pays weekly via Stripe or Wise.
Common Questions
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