Sr. Political Researcher

Senior Political Researcher

GoodParty.org is looking for a Sr. Political Researcher/Senior Political Data Scientist/Sr. Data Analyst to join our mission to make people matter more than money in our democracy. In this role, you’ll use data, experiments, and quantitative models to support independent candidates at every level, helping them run smarter, win more often, and serve their communities better. You’ll join a fully remote, fast-growing startup where your work directly shapes the future of our democracy.

About GoodParty.org:

GoodParty.org is on a mission to make people matter more than money in our democracy by empowering independent candidates to run, win, and serve. Our AI-powered platform provides free tools to independent candidates to run their campaigns, connect with voters, and serve their communities effectively.

A majority of eligible voters, including more than half of Millennials and Gen Z, say that neither Republicans nor Democrats represent them. GoodParty.org is the solution. In 2024 we empowered 3,444 independent candidate wins across 48 states from all across the ideological spectrum. The only things our elected officials have in common is that they prioritize people over parties and community over corporate interests. In 2024, 40.3 votes (26% of all voters) cast a ballot for our candidates. We’re not a political party; we’re a platform and a movement to democratize democracy.

Founded by serial entrepreneur Farhad Mohit ($1B+ in exits, including Flipagram/TikTok and Shopzilla), GoodParty.org is building solutions so we can have a truly representative democracy where society’s biggest problems are solved.

What you’ll do:

Develop, test, and refine quantitative models of electoral outcomes, including vote propensity, voter support scoring, and pathways to victory for independent candidates.
Model constituencies and public service outcomes by collecting, imputing, and analyzing public opinion data to help independent candidates and public officials better understand and serve their communities.
Implement and iterate on public opinion measurement methods (e.g., surveys or in-product feedback) to build feedback loops on constituent priorities.
Design and run surveys and political field experiments to understand how independents can best run, win, and serve once in office.
Find opportunities for natural experiments in our product, user, and election result data.
Improve measurements of electoral and public service outcomes.
Identify new data sources and improve the usage of our existing data on campaigns, elections, voting, and constituencies (e.g., improving our nationwide election identification system by surfacing candidate and election data as far ahead of each election as possible).
Partner with engineering, operations, and product teams to incorporate new datasets and modeling into a scalable data pipeline and internal tools.
Enhance product features for candidates and public officials through the application of political data and modeling best practices, while continuously improving our core political models.
Work independently as a senior member of a small research team to drive measurable results quickly.
Own a cycle of constant model improvement, aiming for steady, measurable accuracy gains and better decision-making week over week.
Reports to the Research Director.

Who we’re looking for:

You’re up for the audacious challenge of transforming our democracy for Good.
You have 5+ years of relevant experience; or a master’s degree in a quantitative or social science field (e.g., political science, statistics, economics, public policy, data science) and 3+ years of applied work experience; or a PhD with evidence of experience working quickly with concrete deliverables.
You have a strong background applying data science, statistics, or computation to politics. This expertise could take many forms, but may include several of: econometrics, causal inference, sampling and survey design, political applications of machine learning and AI, or social scientific simulations.
You have experience with public opinion data: either designing and fielding surveys or analyzing combinations of data sources on public opinion or behavior and imputing data where appropriate. You’ve worked to develop statewide or nationwide pictures of voter/constituent thoughts and behaviors.
You have experience designing and deploying field experiments, either in the context of a product, campaigns, or governance, or you have a fine sense for identifying natural experiments and opportunities for causal measurement in political data.
You have experience with forecasts, predictions, or inferential models about politics. Examples could be counterfactual event simulation, propensity scoring or support scoring on campaigns, or data-journalistic predictive models of electoral success.
You have hands-on experience with U.S. election data or other types of U.S. political data, and are comfortable working with messy, real-world datasets (election returns, voter files, or other types of administrative data).
You are able to scope questions, choose methods, ship analyses, and iterate independently.
You have used a statistical programming language in a previous role (preferably R or Python), are comfortable writing queries in SQL, and have experimented with how cutting-edge AI models can be used to address political data and research questions.

Bonus if:

You have experience working with elected officials or government agencies in a data or modeling intensive role.
You have led the design or implementation of real field experiments, ideally through digital products such as apps or web tools.
You have experience turning research ideas on the whiteboard into prototypes or minimum viable examples of software that can be scaled by an engineering team and deployed in a product.
You’re tired of sitting on the sidelines while democracy fails to meet its potential — and you’re ready to act.

Why you should work at GoodParty.org:

Join us in solving the biggest problem of our time – fixing our democracy – so all other problems can be solved.
We’re a Public Benefit Corporation that prioritizes social impact over profit.
Innovative Bitcoin denominated deferred bonus plan, allowing you to have the amazing upside of being in a startup while working on a truly meaningful mission.
Work where and how you like, on a fully remote team spread across the country.
Join a passionate team with diverse political views focused on one mission.
100% coverage of health, dental, and vision benefits for you and your dependents.
We encourage you to take time off to recharge and have an unlimited PTO (sick and vacation) policy. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We believe a work-life balance is needed to get there.
401(k) program available so you can contribute toward retirement savings (no employer match).
Individual learning & development budget to fund your growth.
We’ll make sure you’ve got what you need to work remotely through our workspace setup stipend.
If you work from home, we give $50/month to help with your internet and other expenses. If you prefer co-working, that’s an option we can discuss too.
Fully funded for our mission. No stressing over whether the next round of funding will come through. Focus on making an impact. That’s what matters here.

The salary range is $157,000 - $196,000, for this remote, full-time position with excellent benefits. This range reflects the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, skills, seniority, education, qualifications, certifications, and organizational needs. We reserve the right to modify this pay range at any time.

We are not considering candidates currently based outside of the US, so please only apply if you are physically located in the US. Unfortunately, we are not able to provide sponsorship for any of our roles at this time.

Ready to learn more and apply?