The fast-paced world of winning elections and running them fairly, from door-knockers and pollsters to election administrators.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Political Consultant: Advises candidates on how to win: message, ads, polling, and strategy. Typical pay $110k.
Political Data Scientist: Builds models that predict how people will vote and who campaigns should contact. Typical pay $115k.
Political Ad Maker / Media Consultant: Creates the TV, streaming, and online ads that campaigns run, and decides where to place them. Typical pay $110k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Campaign Manager: Runs a political campaign day to day: staff, budget, schedule, and strategy. Typical pay $95k.
Pollster: Designs and runs surveys to measure what voters think and how an election might go. Typical pay $63k.
Opposition Researcher: Digs through public records to find everything about a candidate's opponent (and their own candidate). Typical pay $75k.
Campaign Finance Director: Raises the money a campaign needs, from big donors to small online gifts. Typical pay $80k.
Digital Campaign Director: Runs a campaign's online presence: social media, email fundraising, and digital ads. Typical pay $80k.
Campaign Finance Compliance Specialist: Makes sure every dollar a campaign raises and spends follows election law and is reported correctly. Typical pay $72k.
Election Administrator: Runs elections for a county or city: voter rolls, polling places, ballots, and vote counting. Typical pay $78k.
Election Security Specialist: Protects voting systems and election offices from hackers and disinformation. Typical pay $105k.
Speechwriter: Writes the speeches politicians and officials deliver. Typical pay $95k.
Advance Associate: Travels ahead of a politician to plan every detail of an event before they arrive. Typical pay $62k.
Campaign Data Manager: Manages the voter database a campaign uses to decide whom to call, text, and visit. Typical pay $68k.
Political Direct Mail Consultant: Designs and targets the political postcards and flyers that fill mailboxes before elections. Typical pay $90k.
Post-Election Audit Specialist: Runs the audits after an election, hand-counting random samples of paper ballots to prove the machine count was right. Typical pay $72k.
Starter: fastest way in
Field Organizer: Recruits volunteers and runs door-knocking and phone banks to turn out voters. Typical pay $48k.
Canvasser: Knocks on doors to talk with voters about a candidate or ballot measure. Typical pay $36k.
Poll Worker: Runs a polling place on Election Day, checking in voters and handing out ballots. Typical pay $1k.
Petition Circulator: Collects voter signatures to get candidates or ballot measures onto the ballot. Typical pay $35k.
Voting Equipment Technician: Tests, repairs, and secures the voting machines and ballot scanners used in elections. Typical pay $48k.
Voter Registration Coordinator: Signs up new voters and keeps voter rolls accurate, at election offices or civic nonprofits. Typical pay $46k.
Political Tracker: Follows opposing candidates to public events with a camera, recording everything in case they say something embarrassing. Typical pay $40k.
Election Ballot Layout Specialist: Builds every version of the ballot a county uses, so each voter sees exactly the right races, in the right order, in the right languages. Typical pay $54k.
Campaign Call Time Manager: Sits beside a candidate for hours a day, handing them donor info and keeping them dialing to raise campaign money. Typical pay $50k.
Candidate Body Person: A candidate's shadow on the campaign trail, carrying everything they need and keeping them on schedule from dawn to midnight. Typical pay $47k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.