Will Media call the Election Early

[Mick2360]

A favorite lib trick; overwhelming evidence of a Dem winner when actual voting is still taking place! Remember, four years ago they were starting to call Kerry Mr. President!

[Ditch Jigger]

A favorite lib trick; overwhelming evidence of a Dem winner when actual voting is still taking place! Remember, four years ago they were starting to call Kerry Mr. President!

 

 

The only time I remember that happening was in 1984, when Reagan carried every state east of the Mississippi and had enough EC votes before 9 PM to win. I think that every mainstream network now has a policy to not call any state until the polls close there. If you heard that Kerry "won" Ohio last time around, you didn't hear it from them. You heard it from Kerry's camp when the networks interviewed them and they claimed their exit polls showed Kerry leading there. There's nothing that the networks can do to prevent campaign staffers from shooting their mouths off.

 

Florida closes at 7 PM our time. I expect that the networks won't call Florida on exit polls alone without some hard returns. California, not until 11. The only way the race gets called before 11 is if Obama has enough EC votes without the west coast states reporting in. And with California having 55 electoral votes, it might not happen.

[Walter Sobchak]

The only time I remember that happening was in 1984, when Reagan carried every state east of the Mississippi and had enough EC votes before 9 PM to win. I think that every mainstream network now has a policy to not call any state until the polls close there. If you heard that Kerry "won" Ohio last time around, you didn't hear it from them. You heard it from Kerry's camp when the networks interviewed them and they claimed their exit polls showed Kerry leading there. There's nothing that the networks can do to prevent campaign staffers from shooting their mouths off.

 

Florida closes at 7 PM our time. I expect that the networks won't call Florida on exit polls alone without some hard returns. California, not until 11. The only way the race gets called before 11 is if Obama has enough EC votes without the west coast states reporting in. And with California having 55 electoral votes, it might not happen.

 

Didn't the networks call 2000 too early (twice)?

[mcurtiss]

Didn't the networks call 2000 too early (twice)?

 

yup. and they're very careful now not to repeat that.

[RegDunlop]

The media called this one about 2 weeks ago

[Ditch Jigger]

Didn't the networks call 2000 too early (twice)?

 

 

Not before the polls closed in every state. I think they called it after midnight. And IIRC it was only CBS that called it. They retracted it about half an hour later. They couldn't call the race until the polls closed in California.