The waiting was the hardest part, according to The LA Times. But the TV networks finally got to the end of the 2020 road to the White House on Saturday morning.
Nearly four days after the final votes were cast, the cable news networks and broadcast news divisions called Joe Biden the winner over President Trump in rapid fire fashion within a 16-minute window that began at 11:24 a.m. Eastern.
CNN was the first with the call, followed by NBC and MSNBC 55 seconds later. CBS came in at 45 seconds after 11:25, followed by ABC at 30 seconds after 11:26. All four organizations use the same vote count and exit polling data to make their determinations on the outcome of the race.
The Associated Press and Fox News, which collaborate in their voter survey data, came in slightly later, with AP calling it at 11:28 and Fox News at 11:40. The slight delay at Fox News had to do with its decision desk — the analysts who determine when a state can be called — which was looking at different.
The wait for the call of a winner is the second longest in the television era of election coverage, which began in 1948. The country waited five weeks for a Supreme Court decision to rule before George W. Bush was elected in 2000.
Only three other presidential calls made by TV organizations came after election day — John F. Kennedy in 1960, Richard Nixon in 1968 and the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004. All of them occurred the following day.
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