Forecasting election results and calling races used to be considered fairly routine work for journalists. Then 2016 happened. Then 2020 came along and made 2016 look like a cake walk.
Anthony Salvanto oversees the CBS News Decision Desk, which estimates outcomes on election night. He joined KNX News’ daily political show Countdown 2024 to talk about covering one of the most unpredictable campaign cycles in American history.
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“We are incredibly transparent with what we do on election night,” he said. “I will be showing you right from the Decision Desk, as we get vote reports in, what it is that the Decision Desk is seeing, what our models are estimating. We will show you where the votes are being reported from and where they're outstanding.”
If the race is close, Salvanto said “it could be a late night,” but the team usually pushes through for however long it takes. And if vote counts are disputed, they’ll be ready to provide facts to put the issue into context.
“We can show historical patterns. We also know the demographics of a state and of a county,” he said. “And we also show – and this is very important, too – the differences, where we know it, between the early vote and the mail vote as those are counted and the election day vote. And what you’ve seen increasingly is in recent years, there have been partisan splits and partisan patterns in that regard.”
Recent polls show Vice President Kamala Harris gaining ground over former President Donald Trump – but can we trust those polls? Salvanto says we can…as long as there are no surprises when it comes to voter turnout.
“The difference there in who may or may not vote, even if it's 10 to 15% there of registered voters, it could very well be determinative, and there's not necessarily a poll that's going to estimate that right off the bat, you know, a week before or two weeks before an election,” he said.
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Listen to the full episode above to hear former acting ICE director John Sandweg analyze both candidates’ immigration plans, and catch new episodes of Countdown 2024 live at 2:30 p.m. every weekday through Election Day.
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