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.

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.

Contract and Payment Terms

• You will be engaged as an independent contractor.
• This is a fully remote role that can be completed on your own schedule.
• Projects can be extended, shortened, or concluded early depending on needs and performance.
• Your work at Mercor will not involve access to confidential or proprietary information from any employer, client, or institution.

• 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.

Work arrangement: Fully remote

Eligible countries: Canada, United States

• Please note: We are unable to support H1-B or STEM OPT candidates at this time.

• Payments are weekly on Stripe or Wise based on services rendered.