For all the concerns about a tumultuous process that could leave Americans waiting for days to learn who its next president would be, news outlets instead experienced an election night that hewed close to tradition.
Fox News Channel was the first to declare Donald Trump had reclaimed the presidency at 1:47 a.m. on Wednesday. Other television networks and The Associated Press had Trump on the precipice of returning to presidency when he took the stage in Florida at 2:25 a.m. to declare victory. 鈥淭his is, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time,鈥� Trump said onstage at his victory party in West Palm Beach.
His opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, would speak later Wednesday morning, her campaign manager said, dispersing a crowd that had gathered to celebrate her at Howard University.
Broadcast, cable news networks, digital news sites and one streaming service 鈥� Amazon 鈥� steadily into Wednesday morning. Many of their journalists had that determining the winner could be a protracted process that could take several days, .
Yet from the first hints provided by exit poll results shortly after 5 p.m. Eastern time, the election night story moved methodically in Trump鈥檚 direction. The dam broke at 11:18 p.m. on Tuesday, when the AP called the first of seven battleground states, North Carolina, for the former president.
Networks forge forward quickly
The networks moved quickly into the post-mortem stage.
鈥淭his looks a lot more like 2016 to me than 2020,鈥� NBC鈥檚 Chuck Todd said, a reference to Trump鈥檚 victory that year over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Fox News Channel pointed to exit poll results that showed Trump making gains among young voters and Latinos. 鈥淭he Biden-Harris people pushed them into Trump鈥檚 open arms,鈥� said Fox鈥檚 Dana Perino, a former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush.
鈥淢aybe,鈥� Fox News鈥� Brit Hume said, 鈥渋t鈥檚 time for his enemies to stop it.鈥�
In his speech, Trump praised his running mate, J.D. Vance for 鈥済oing into the enemy camp鈥� for interviews on places like CNN and MSNBC. 鈥淗e absolutely obliterated them,鈥� he said.
Hours earlier, when the first exit poll results showed the unpopularity of President Joe Biden and Americans with a dim view of where the country was headed, CNN鈥檚 Chris Wallace said that 鈥渋t would be a miracle if Harris could win with that.鈥� His colleagues, Dana Bash and Audie Cornish, warned him of jumping to conclusions that Harris would be blamed for that, but Wallace sounded more prescient as the night progressed.
鈥淪he was trying to do something as a sitting vice president that had never been done before 鈥� succeed an unpopular president,鈥� Todd said.
Analysts question the element of race
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill, an NBC News analyst, said the element of race could not be discounted. Some Americans were more comfortable with President Joe Biden, a white man, than Harris, who was attempting to be the first woman of color to be elected president, she said.
鈥淐an you imagine a woman of color acting the way Donald Trump acted 鈥� even for one day?鈥� CNN analyst Van Jones said. 鈥淭he kinds of stuff that he said, the kinds of stuff that he did, the way that he would insult people. If you鈥檙e a person of color, you don鈥檛 feel like you have the freedom.鈥�
Trump had 鈥渁 license to just be a fool, just to be an obnoxious ass 鈥� and he gets to be president,鈥� Jones said.
Due to remarkably close pre-election polls, the outcome was considered a mystery that could take many days to resolve. In his last pre-election prediction, statistician Nate Silver said it was no better than a coin flip, giving an ever-so-slight edge to Harris.
The New York Times鈥� predictive Needle judged the contest a 鈥渢oss-up鈥� in the beginning of the evening, leaning slightly toward Trump. But it moved steadily in Trump鈥檚 direction, to the point where the Times by midnight judged Trump with a 90 percent likelihood of capturing the presidency again.
Also by midnight, CNN鈥檚 count had Trump leading Harris in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin 鈥� the so-called blue wall that was central to her strategy for victory.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not mission impossible鈥� for Harris to come back and win Pennsylvania, CNN鈥檚 John King said, looking over voter statistics. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 becoming mission improbable.鈥� Within two hours, CNN awarded Pennsylvania to Trump.
For much of the night, the journalists who stood before 鈥渕agic boards鈥� 鈥� King, Bill Hemmer on Fox News Channel, Steve Kornacki on MSNBC 鈥� took up much of the airtime with granular reports on results. State-by-state, county-by-county, they showed numbers where Trump was outperforming his 2020 campaign and Harris lagged behind Biden鈥檚 results.
If anything, the networks relied too much on their numbers czars than on their reporters.
To have results was a relief
The presence of actual results were a tonic to news organizations that had weeks 鈥� and an excruciatingly long 鈥� to talk about an election campaign that polls have repeatedly shown to be remarkably tight. They tried to extract wisdom from anecdotal evidence.
鈥淒ixville Notch is a metaphor for the entire race,鈥� CNN鈥檚 Alyssa Farah Griffin said, making efforts to draw meaning from the tiny that reported its 3-3 vote for Harris and Trump in the early morning hours.
Former NBC News anchor Brian Williams, during his one-night leading Amazon鈥檚 streamcast appearance, had one unexpected guest in the California studio where he was operating. Puck reporter Tara Palmeri was supposed to report from Trump headquarters in West Palm Beach but was denied credentials to attend by the former president鈥檚 team.
Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita described her as a 鈥済ossip columnist鈥� in a post on the social media site X. Palmeri told Williams she had accurately reported some anxiety within the Trump camp about who was voting early.
Neither Axios nor Politico would immediately confirm reports that some of their reporters were similarly banned, and the Trump campaign did not immediately return a call for comment.
