Local Political Expert — Elections Forecasting at Mercor

Local Political Expert (Iowa) — Elections Forecasting & Political Risk | $100-200/hr | Remote (US)

About the work

Mercor is building expert-authored forecasting and research data used to evaluate and improve AI models on real political and financial analysis. Each task asks you to reason from a fixed evidence cutoff — no hindsight — and document the judgment a strong analyst would have made at that moment. This contract role covers political report authorship: elections, polling, and political-risk events, with a focus on Iowa.

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

• Hands-on experience with specific races in swing states — current or upcoming Senate, governor, or statewide contests, or recent cycles in the same state; this role focuses on Iowa
• 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 reviewed first include 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 not a hard requirement — direct experience and performance on the work sample determine who qualifies.

Not a fit

• Profiles mainly in 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
• Purely theoretical academic work, 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.

Pay and commitment

Hourly contract work at $100-200/hr. Fully remote; you will need on-the-ground knowledge of Iowa races and politics.