Build a local 2026 midterm radar that turns state, congressional, and economic signals into cited market-level leads. Market-level issue map; Candidate, office, and policy watchlists when covered by live Streams; Story and briefing leads tied to official sources; Election-cycle digest automation
The prompt page can ship now. The YouTube walkthrough and thumbnail will be added after the Cursor prompt set is reviewed.
Build video coming next
What you get
Market-level issue map; Candidate, office, and policy watchlists when covered by live Streams; Story and briefing leads tied to official sources; Election-cycle digest automation
Newsroom, campaign, public-affairs, and civic product teams preparing for the November 3, 2026 midterm cycle.
Built for
Developer or AI product lead building a source-grounded local election issue board.
Product type
local election intelligence board
Industries
Media, Civic technology, Public affairs, Campaign intelligence
Product surface
A real app, not a flattened feed.
Market and office filters
Issue map with source-backed issue counts
Lead cards that separate official action, campaign context, economic background, and web-gap supplements
Timeline from current window and prior comparison window
Reporter or analyst packet export with citations
How the live data flows
Cursor builds the product layer. Synorb supplies the cited core.
Cited data core
Synorb
StreamsU.S. Congress Streams; state legislature and executive Streams; election administration and official civic Streams where available; BLS regional and metro economic Streams; state issue Streams for local policy stakes
Stays liveCursor Automations, saved Synorb Beacons, scheduled refresh, and source-linked comments or digests where useful.
Credential safetySynorb credentials stay server-side or in Cursor MCP config. The browser never receives an API key, secret, MCP token, or raw credential bundle.
Build prompt
Paste this into Cursor.
Cursor should ask the setup checkpoint, run Synorb discovery, show the Live Scope Receipt, then build against the real data shape.
You are Cursor. Build Midterm Local Election Radar in this repository.
PROMPT METADATA
Slug: cursor-local-election-radar
Title: Midterm Local Election Radar
Short title: Election Radar
Domain: elections
Tagline: Build a local 2026 midterm radar that turns state, congressional, and economic signals into cited market-level leads.
Video state: Build video coming next
User fit: Newsroom, campaign, public-affairs, and civic product teams preparing for the November 3, 2026 midterm cycle.
What you get:
- Market-level issue map
- Candidate, office, and policy watchlists when covered by live Streams
- Story and briefing leads tied to official sources
- Election-cycle digest automation
Cursor and platform tools:
- Cursor Agent
- Cursor MCP
- Cursor Automations
- Next.js App Router
- server-side Synorb REST route
Synorb stream families:
- U.S. Congress Streams
- state legislature and executive Streams
- election administration and official civic Streams where available
- BLS regional and metro economic Streams
- state issue Streams for local policy stakes
Tags: midterms, 2026 elections, statehouse, Congress, local issues, BLS, civic
PRODUCT TO BUILD
Build a local election intelligence board for the 2026 midterms. The board should track state executives, legislatures, Congress, election administration, ballot measures, legal challenges, and local economic issues that can become market-specific stories or briefings.
PRIMARY USER
Developer or AI product lead building a source-grounded local election issue board.
APP-SPECIFIC LIVE SCOPE
Use the user's selected markets, or recommend the regional newsroom default market pack for a demo. Discover official civic Streams first: U.S. Congress, state legislatures, state executives, election administration, ballot measures, and courts only when live coverage exists. Add BLS regional or metro Streams for local economic angles such as jobs, wages, unemployment, prices, housing pressure, and industry change.
CORE PRODUCT FEATURES
- Market and office filters
- Issue map with source-backed issue counts
- Lead cards that separate official action, campaign context, economic background, and web-gap supplements
- Timeline from current window and prior comparison window
- Reporter or analyst packet export with citations
SYNORB ACCESS CHECKPOINT - ASK AND WAIT
Before making any Synorb discovery call or writing data-dependent code, ask the user to choose:
1. Use my existing Synorb credentials.
2. Get free Synorb credentials through Synorb Connect.
For existing credentials, guide the user to add the Synorb MCP server in Cursor settings or the repo-local Cursor MCP configuration. Use https://mcp.synorb.com/mcp with bearer token or API-key authentication, and keep SYNORB_MCP_TOKEN only in the protected MCP configuration. For runtime calls, put SYNORB_API_KEY and SYNORB_SECRET only in server-side environment variables or the deployment platform secret store.
For Synorb Connect, send the user to https://synorb.com/connect and have them copy values only into protected credential fields. Never ask the user to paste secrets into chat, generated source files, NEXT_PUBLIC variables, browser storage, logs, HTML, screenshots, fixtures, database rows, or documentation. In plain words: do not paste secrets into chat or generated files. If Cursor cannot store a returned value without displaying it, stop and give protected-entry instructions instead of continuing.
After the user confirms both credential paths, call synorb-profile through MCP and create a temporary server-side account validation route or script for REST. Report only pass or fail, account name, quota state, and allowed date window. Never print credential values. If either MCP or REST fails, stop at a setup-blocked state. Never substitute another provider, mock feed, guessed Stream, or scraped source.
SYNORB MCP DISCOVERY CONTRACT
1. Call synorb-profile once first. Record account, quota state, date window, and whether coverage or quota warnings are present.
2. Call synorb-stream-search for the requested beat, entity, source family, market, ticker, media format, or policy topic. Use include_details true when choosing streams or source channels. Treat coverage.status "partial" as inventory pagination, not proof that no other Streams exist.
3. Select only real customer-visible Streams with positive 17-digit IDs. Preserve every Synorb ID as a JSON string end to end. Never guess, shorten, coerce, or invent an ID.
4. Call synorb-details on selected Streams when you need source channels, media formats, source_class, evidence_type, available filters, or recent volume.
5. Run synorb-manifests with mode "count" first for a zero-quota density check. Then run one bounded build sample with compact true, page_size 5-12, target_count 5-12, selected stream_ids or source_channel filters, and an explicit date window inside synorb-profile limits.
6. Use tag_names, source_channel_names, source_channel_ids, source_class, evidence_type, media_format, ticker, isin, or identifier only when the approved product scope requires them.
7. Count and orient responses are preflight only. Do not summarize them as exhaustive result sets. Preserve quota_header, coverage.status, required_user_notice, citations, and recommended_next_call when MCP returns them.
8. Show a Live Scope Receipt before building data-dependent UI: Stream names and IDs, source-channel names and IDs when used, filters, evidence and media types, date window, sample count, quota header, citations when returned, recommended next call, and any coverage caveat. Ask the user to approve or adjust it before persisting a launch configuration.
SYNORB REST RUNTIME CONTRACT
Use Synorb MCP for build-time discovery and Synorb REST for the running application. Put runtime calls behind a server-only route such as /api/synorb, /api/synorb/newsroom, or the equivalent backend endpoint in the detected framework.
The server route calls POST https://api.synorb.com/streams/query with api-key and secret headers from server-side secrets. The first request must omit cursor and send one of stream_ids, source_channel_ids, home_domains, ticker, isin, or identifier, plus story_type when needed, page_size, and an explicit date window. Multi-stream REST results are returned as flat rows under data.briefs, data.signals, or data.manifests depending on the request. Pagination is under data.pagination, and the next request uses data.pagination.next.
Do not expect MCP-only quota_header, coverage, or citations fields from REST unless the API response actually includes them. Surface REST usage honestly. Cite each returned row's real source_url. Validate inputs, enforce auth where appropriate, lock CORS to the app origin, rate-limit public routes, and never expose SYNORB_API_KEY or SYNORB_SECRET to browser code.
FULL MANIFEST, SIGNAL, AND BRIEF SURFACE
Do not flatten Synorb into generic headline cards. Preserve the richest available facets:
Manifest fields: id, record_id, source_url, source_name, source_channel, source_channel_names, stream_ids, stream_names, published_at or published_date, media_format, story_type, significance, tags, entities, topics, citations, coverage, diagnostics, usage, and pagination when returned.
Signal fields: claims, claim_type, confidence, evidence, quote when present, featured or actionable fields when present, per-claim source links, and enough context for a user to verify the claim against the original source.
Brief fields: body_markdown, key takeaways, notable quotes, why it matters, timeline, sources, caveats, and source-linked citations when present.
If a field is absent, render a professional missing-state instead of inventing it. Every exported draft, chart drill-in, digest item, alert, and card detail must retain a source URL path back to the original source.
GAP-ONLY WEB POLICY
Synorb is the source-grounded context layer. Web search may fill an explicit gap only when Synorb coverage is absent or when the user asks for supplemental context. Put web results in a separate lane labeled web context or unverified supplement. Never blend web text into Synorb-cited prose, never present web context as a Synorb Manifest, and never use scraping or another provider as a silent fallback when Synorb is unavailable.
CURSOR-NATIVE IMPLEMENTATION LOOP
Work like a Cursor agent inside an existing repository:
1. Inspect the repo first. Detect framework, package manager, test runner, auth pattern, server-route convention, component system, and deployment target. If the app is new, recommend Next.js App Router with TypeScript unless the user chooses another stack.
2. Ask one compact product checkpoint only when needed: audience, first-session outcome, private or public surface, refresh cadence, delivery channel, and whether to use the recommended scope.
3. Add repo guidance in .cursor/rules or project notes when useful: server-only secrets, Synorb ID strings, source URL preservation, no silent fallback data, and Build Receipt requirements.
4. Build a vertical slice first with live Synorb data or an explicit setup-blocked state. Local fixtures may exist only for tests.
5. Add typed adapters for Manifests, Signals, Briefs, claims, citations, coverage, usage, diagnostics, and pagination. Keep adapters tolerant of absent optional fields and strict about invented required fields.
6. Add focused tests for secret safety, adapter mapping, empty and partial states, pagination, source links, and product-specific acceptance criteria.
7. Run the local checks that fit the repo. Summarize failures instead of hiding them.
8. Finish with a Build Receipt naming exact Streams, source channels, filters, date window, routes, env names only, automation schedule or trigger, test commands, and known gaps.
AUTOMATION FOR THIS BUILD
Create a twice-weekly Cursor Automation during campaign season, with an option to increase to weekday mornings after Labor Day 2026.
CURSOR AUTOMATIONS
When the product needs to keep running, create or describe a Cursor Automation that uses the approved Live Scope Receipt. Prefer scheduled morning or weekday refreshes for desks and dashboards, and GitHub, Linear, Slack, PagerDuty, or webhook triggers for developer workflows. Automation output must include source-linked changes, coverage caveats, and enough Stream/filter metadata for a reviewer to reproduce the call. Do not claim an automation works until it has been run or clearly marked as planned.
APP-SPECIFIC ACCEPTANCE TESTS
- The date handling uses absolute dates and makes November 3, 2026 the election-day anchor.
- Economic claims cite BLS or another returned official source, not campaign prose.
- Every lead names whether it is ready to write, needs reporting, or is only background context.
SHARED ACCEPTANCE TESTS
1. MCP and REST credential paths are validated before live data is used.
2. No token, API key, API secret, credential bundle, or secret value appears in client code, NEXT_PUBLIC variables, HTML, logs, fixtures, screenshots, database rows, docs, or API responses.
3. Every persisted Synorb ID is a validated 17-digit string.
4. Every first-screen row, draft, card, alert, chart drill-in, digest item, and export preserves a real source_url path.
5. The UI distinguishes Manifest, Signal, Brief, claim, citation, coverage, usage, diagnostics, and web-gap data instead of blending them together.
6. Loading, error, setup-blocked, empty, partial coverage, pagination, and stale-data states are visible and tested.
7. No mock data or substitute provider appears in user-visible preview after credentials validate.
8. The Build Receipt lists exact Streams, source channels, filters, date window, route names, environment variable names only, automation plan, test commands, and remaining gaps.
FINAL OUTPUT
Build the product as a working vertical slice with real Synorb data or a setup-blocked state. Then provide a Build Receipt with exact Streams, source channels, filters, date window, routes, environment variable names only, automation status, test commands run, and any known gaps. Do not deploy unless the user separately asks after review.