A tracker is a person who surveils and records political candidates. While usually passive, they occasionally shout questions. Trackers are employed by rival campaigns, particularly in important races, to follow opponents in the hope of catching them in a gaffe, an inconsistency, or an embarrassing moment, as a part of opposition research. Trackers typically are low-level employees in a campaign, often 20-somethings in their first job after college.
The term first entered popular culture in the 2006 George Allen incident when a tracker recorded the incumbent Virginia senator using a racial slur, which contributed to his failure to win re-election. But trackers were being used in 2002 when Phil Press, one of the earliest ones, followed Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Ed Rendell and videotaped him falling asleep during an African-American Chamber of Commerce event. While embarrassed by a story of his napping on the front page of a Pennsylvania newspaper, during Rendell's 2006 re-election bid, the campaign hired Press to train a team of trackers to follow Rendell's opponent.
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