Local Political Expert: Elections Forecasting & Political Risk

What you'll do

This is the state-level counterpart to Mercor's national elections forecasting listing, at the same $150–250 band. The project builds expert-written forecasting data used to evaluate AI models on real political and financial analysis, and every task works from a fixed evidence cutoff: you reason only from what was knowable at that moment, and the task is graded on exactly that.

The work:

• Author point-in-time political reports and forecasts from a stated cutoff
• Make and document directional calls on 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

What distinguishes this version is geography. The ad wants people who know a particular swing state's electorate, candidates and local environment, with hands-on work on current or upcoming Senate, governor or statewide contests there, or recent cycles in the same state.

Who fits

• Local political analysts with live experience on specific swing-state races
• On-the-ground knowledge from roles such as university political scientist, state or regional pollster, state campaign or party analytics staff, or state political-risk analyst
• A record of making live calls on polling, win probabilities or odds, not retrospective commentary
• Strong polling literacy and causal event analysis
• Typically 8+ years of direct experience, or unusually strong evidence of equivalent performance

Mercor looks first at political science departments and survey research centers in the target states, state and regional pollsters, state-level campaign and party analytics teams, and decision desks or ratings outlets with state-specific coverage. National experience helps when paired with deep knowledge of one state. Brand names are a first-pass signal only; your work sample decides.

Not a fit, per the ad: mainly international or country-risk profiles, analysts without a current or recent race in the state they would cover, communications or journalism profiles without forecasting, and purely theoretical academics.

The ad does not list which swing states are in scope, so name yours and the races you worked in your application.

What it pays

$150–250 per hour, Mercor's published band. Payments are weekly on Stripe or Wise. No weekly hours are stated.

Point-in-time discipline

Tasks are graded on reasoning from the cutoff without hindsight, data leakage, confidential information or material non-public information. For anyone currently on a campaign or at a pollster, that last point matters: internal polling and non-public campaign data are off-limits.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Top-tier hourly rate for political analysis
• Rewards state-specific knowledge that national work rarely values
• Grading AI analyses is part of the job alongside writing
• Weekly payment on Stripe or Wise; remote and flexible

Less good:

• Open only to residents of the United States or Canada
• 8+ years typically expected
• A current or recent race in the covered state is essentially required
• H-1B and STEM OPT holders are excluded
• Independent contractor: projects can be extended, shortened or ended early

About this listing

Posted on Mercor as an hourly remote contract with location requirements for Canada and the United States, confirmed open on 24 September 2026. Pay, background preferences and exclusions are the ad's own. See Mercor.