by Smartphones started ringing at 7:30 p.m. television stations began to declare former President Donald J. Trump the winner.
The result was expected, but not the moment. The first call confused some Iowans, angered Trump’s rivals and sparked a new round of concerns about the media’s role in calling the election.
“Are you kidding me?” Rep. Chip Roy, a key Ron DeSantis ally, told reporters in West Des Moines. “You haven’t even started voting yet and you’ve heard all the speeches and AP calls it?” Dan Pfeiffer, former senior advisor to Barack Obama, called The initial projection was “a counterproductive measure at a time of massive distrust.”
In fact, AP (in addition to the major television networks) – followed a long-standing policy on when to project a winner.
While the media typically refrains from announcing a screening until the polls have closed, the Iowa caucuses are not typical. Voters must be present before 7 p.m., when the caucus doors close, and the AP considers this time the equivalent of closing a poll. In 2020, AP projected Trump as the winner after 25 minutes.
That year, Trump was a virtually unopposed incumbent president. He faced more competition in Monday’s caucus, and the second place finish, whether it was Mr. DeSantis or Nikki Haley, was a source of suspense for several hours Monday night. Some voters and campaign aides believed that Trump’s early call could affect voters’ decisions in caucuses that had only just begun.
“Early calling bothers a lot of voters,” said Mosheh Oinounou, founder of Mo News and former CBS executive producer. “These results were widely expected. At the same time, we’ve been talking about things like election interference, our democracy, and the media trying to earn people’s trust again.”
“Just because you can call him so early,” he added, “should you do it?”
For its part, the AP said it had analyzed early results from eight Iowa counties that were received within the first half hour after the caucus began, showing that Trump had received “well more than half of the total votes.” counted.” That data was combined with AP’s proprietary information. voter surveywhich the outlet said “showed Trump with an insurmountable lead” among men and women, and across all age groups and geographic regions in Iowa. (The New York Times relied on the AP’s racial call to report its own results).
In fact, CNN beat The AP by a minute in projecting Trump as the night’s winner. The network’s projection was based in part on a so-called “gateway survey” conducted by Edison Research on behalf of several major television networks. On air, Jake Tapper told viewers that Trump’s expected victory was “based on his overwhelming lead in our entry poll among Iowa caucusgoers and some early votes that are coming in.”
A CNN executive said the network had collected enough data to announce a race call at 7 p.m. Central Time, the official start time of the caucus, but that the network had opted to wait until it believed all voters needed to be there. within their caucus sites.
ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC projected Trump as the winner shortly after 7:30 p.m. central time.
Later on Monday, Fox News hosts said they did not consider the early call to Trump to be a problem.
“When the caucus doors close, it will be the official time to call the race,” Bret Baier told viewers. “There’s a lot of controversy about it because people were inside and obviously had their phones, but that’s the rules in Iowa.”
His colleague Brit Hume added: “We are talking here about people going out together on a cold night to a meeting place, the doors are closed and no one can get in, so the opportunity to vote remains. It’s hard to believe that a lot of people said, ‘Oh my God, the race’s called, I’m going home.’ I do not think.”
Nicolas Nehamas and Benjamin Mullin contributed reports.
