Nearly 90 Minutes Before Polls Closed In California, Fox News chose To Make The Irresponsible Announcement That Republicans Had Already Lost The U.s. House Of Representatives. Did That Early Call Cost The Republicans Orange County, California?
Orange County has been a Republican stronghold (and a famous one) for decades, and while there is no question the county had been trending Democrat, on Election Night, Republicans lost all seven congressional seats. But if you look at the vote counts, there were a number of squeakers.
While Democrat voters prefer early voting, it is well known that Republican voters tend to vote on Election Day — which means those after-work hours are crucially important when it comes to turnout.
But for a crucial 87 minutes, between 6:33 p.m. local time, when Fox announced the election for the U.S. House of representatives was over, and 8:00 p.m., when the polls closed, Orange County was told that voting in an important national race that might have been a motivating factor to get in or remain in line, was futile.
Media outlets are supposed to wait until all the polls have closed before calling a race, supposed to wait until all the votes have been cast. For a host of reasons no one should have to explain, this is not only considered good manners, it is an easy way for the media to avoid meddling in elections by discouraging voter participation. – READ MORE