Fellow, Election Analytics

Join the 2027 New York Times Fellowship class as an elections analyst in New York.

As an elections analytics fellow, you will contribute to The Times’s data-driven coverage of American elections. You will be part of the Election Analytics team, which produces The New York Times/Siena University Poll, the live election-night forecast known as The Needle and our polling tracker, in addition to stories that explore voter decisions and analyze past elections.

Election Analytics is an interdisciplinary team of reporters, editors, developers and statisticians. You should have experience working in one of these areas and be excited to learn about the others. You will use your knowledge of elections and voting to contribute to stories, graphics and our longer-term projects.

The exact form of this role will depend on your background. Perhaps you are more comfortable writing than coding and want to deepen your technical skills to more easily answer questions yourself. Or perhaps you bring a background as a developer or statistician and want to work on your ability to communicate your ideas in words.

This is an in-office position and includes regular attendance in the office four days each week. There may be some flexibility to work remotely per your departmental guidance. You may be required to work some nights, weekends and holidays as needed.

 Responsibilities: 

• Contribute original analyses of polls, voter registration trends and recent election results for articles or graphics
• Increase the team’s understanding of elections through data collection, scraping, statistical analysis and reporting 
• Participate in training and social programs designed for the fellowship
• Collaborate with colleagues across the newsroom
• Demonstrate support and understanding of our value of journalistic independence and a strong commitment to our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world

Basic Qualifications:

• No more than five years of full-time, professional journalism experience, excluding internships
• A deep and demonstrated understanding of American elections
• Experience working with data
• Expertise in at least one of the team’s focus areas: 
• Data-driven reporting, including reporting clips or blog posts that demonstrate analytical findings meant for a broad audience 
• Statistics, including experience developing statistical models in R or Python
• Development, including proficiency in R or Python, experience working with cloud computing providers and experience building productionized web applications 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience writing news stories, such as for a college newspaper

To apply, upload a résumé, cover letter and an essay of no more than 500 words on a trend in American politics that you are watching. Also include links to one to three examples of nonacademic elections analysis you have performed. These can include social media threads, Substack posts or unpublished works. The application will prompt you when to upload materials. Applications that fail to include any of these materials or follow these instructions will not be considered.

You must be authorized to work in the United States. We will not sponsor work visas for the fellowship, but we will consider applicants with valid work authorization or a valid student visa that can be extended with Optional Practical Training.

You may apply to only one fellowship position per year. For instance, if you apply as an elections analyst, you should not apply for any other positions in the fellowship. Duplicate applications will be discarded.

The application deadline is 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Nov. 20.

The Times Fellowship generates a high level of interest, so we cannot acknowledge the status of applications upon receipt or during the vetting process, which can take eight weeks or more. We cannot accept applications that are mailed or emailed to us. We will contact you for interviews as needed.

The fellowship program will begin on or about June 7, 2027, and end on May 26, 2028, subject to satisfactory performance. Please note there is no guarantee of a full-time position upon completion of the program. 

For more information about the Times Fellowship, visit here.

This position is represented by the NewsGuild of New York.

REQ-020757

Additional Compensation and Benefits:

For roles in the U.S., dependent on your role, you may be eligible for variable pay, such as an annual bonus and restricted stock. Benefits may include medical, dental and vision benefits, Flexible Spending Accounts (F.S.A.s), a company-matching 401(k) plan, employee stock purchase plan, paid vacation, paid sick days, paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement and professional development programs.

For roles outside of the U.S., information on benefits will be provided during the interview process.