About this opportunity
Overview
Mercor is seeking a local political expert to contribute expert-authored forecasting and research data used to evaluate and improve AI models on political and financial analysis. The work focuses on point-in-time reasoning from a fixed evidence cutoff, with no hindsight, and on documenting the judgment a strong analyst would have made at that moment. This is a fully remote independent contractor role, completed on your own schedule, with weekly payments through Stripe or Wise based on services rendered.
The role centers on political report authorship for elections, polling, and political-risk events. Applicants should have hands-on experience with specific races in swing states or recent cycles in the same state, plus live judgment experience rather than retrospective commentary.
What You'll Do
- Write point-in-time political reports and forecasts using the evidence available at the stated 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 They're Looking For
- Local political analysts with direct experience on current or upcoming Senate, governor, or statewide contests, or recent cycles in the same state.
- Candidates with on-the-ground knowledge of the electorate, the candidates, and the local political environment.
- People whose background may include university political science, state or regional polling, state-level campaign or party analytics, or state political-risk analysis.
- Applicants with a record of making live judgments about polling, win probabilities, or odds in those races.
- Strong polling literacy and causal event analysis skills.
- Typically 8+ years of direct experience, or unusually strong evidence of equivalent performance.
Not a Fit
- Profiles focused mainly on international politics, geopolitics, or country risk without substantial 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 that are purely theoretical and do not involve live race analysis.
Additional Details
- The work is graded on reasoning from the stated cutoff without hindsight, data leakage, confidential information, or material non-public information.
- Mercor notes that work on this project will not involve access to confidential or proprietary information from any employer, client, or institution.
- Projects may be extended, shortened, or concluded early depending on needs and performance.
- The company is unable to support H1-B or STEM OPT candidates at this time.
