When did you know in election nights you watched that a candidate was gonna win

[Podgy the Bear]

1972     7PM
Living in Nashville--watching with my parents.  It was very obvious by 8PM to this 8 year old that Nixon was going to win easily.

1976     7AM the next morning
Probably the most interesting of Election Nights to me.  Carter went into a very quick lead, and I went to bed thinking he would win easily.  I got up the next morning and realized that he came very closing to losing it all.  The networks finally called it around 330 AM.

1980     6PM
NBC came out of the block and called state after state for Reagan just as soon as polls closed (none of this fake drama they create today).  And they didn't miss anything (even with the close states in the South).

1984     6PM
Only drama was whether Reagan would sweep the 50 states. 

1988     9PM

1992/1996   8PM
Moved to Atlanta by that time.  Clinton came out with big leads for both Election Nights--I thought he was going to exceed 400 EV, just came up short.

2000    midnight
By that time, the trend was definitely with Bush.  He had just won TN and he was on the threshhold to win FL (he was never behind there and was up by 70000 or so).  Plus, he had leads in WI, NM, and OR at the time.

2004   11PM
Bush had won FL by a bigger margin than expected (some polls had Kerry in the lead).  He was leading in OH, and the margins were much tighter in PA and MI than in 2000.

2008/2012  9PM/10PM
Obama was winning OH and FL (easily in 2008, less so in 2012)

2016  11PM
It was becoming clear that Hillary was in serious trouble when the returns were showing her behind in the Rust Belt.  The precursor was Trump's huge run in the counties north of Tampa.

2020  5AM
When Biden pulled ahead in WI.  It was clear he would win in MI, and with his already declared victory in AZ by Fox and AP, Biden would be at 270.


The projection of AZ 2020 was to Trump what TN 2000 was to Gore.  It disrupted their momentum and the perception that they were going to pull it off.