Local Political Expert, Elections Forecasting & Political Risk

Mercor
Sciences and research
Remote
Canada, United States only
Contract

$150 to $250/hIndicative range provided by Mercor

Posted on September 21, 2026 · Applications until October 22, 2026

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This remote role involves writing point-in-time political reports and forecasting election outcomes without using hindsight. Candidates need strong polling literacy and deep, hands-on experience analyzing specific US state races.

Description in English, as published by Mercor.

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.

10 openings

Only: Canada, United States

About Mercor

Mercor is a US marketplace hiring remote experts for AI and consulting projects, from law to engineering. The original posting is on their site.

View this job on Mercor

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