Wrong or premature projections

[TheTide]

'Premature' being states that turned out to be so close that it didn't justify them being called so early.

Here's the ones I'm aware of. Feel free to add more.

1960 - California (called wrongly for Kennedy by NBC, which actually meant that he was declared the winner) and Hawaii (called wrongly for Nixon).

1980 - A number of very close Southern states were called pretty much as polls closed. Among them I think we're MS, TN and AL, all of which voted by around 1% for Reagan

1992 - Georgia called for Clinton as soon as polls closed. His margin was under 1%.

2000 - New Mexico called for Gore fairly early (before the West Coast polls closed I think) and then had to be retracted because it was within a few hundred votes. I think there was some other case in this election too, not sure.

2020 - Arizona called for Biden on election night and was well under 1%.

[Liberalrocks]

1980: Maryland was initially called for Reagan then given to Carter later that night. Massachusetts was called for Carter and kept in his column for most of the night Reagan would eek out a win when all ballots were counted.

[Podgy the Bear]

1976: CBS called Oregon incorrectly for Carter.  They retracted it later in the evening, and as a result, they were hesitant to call Mississippi, the eventual state that decided the election.  They ended calling it about 20 minutes after the other two networks.

1988: ABC and CBS called Illinois incorrectly for Dukakis. 

2000: Of course, the 1000 ton gorilla with Florida.

1980 was remarkable for the speed in which the states were called.  And NBC was by far and way the best on this.  They called the election for Reagan around 8:15 that night and didn't miss a state.  You can watch You Tube on how NBC called Election Night 1980 and look at the professionalism of John Chancellor and David Brinkley (and a young Tom Brokaw) and compare that to the present level of so called political analysts.

Today, it's just the opposite, and the networks and news agencies will delay a call for several hours to build the suspense.  They won't call states like Vermont or Wyoming--making statements as too early to call.  They could have easily called Florida for Trump and Virginia for Biden within a matter of minutes.  It's irritating, and in certain cases becomes potentially dangerous with the delayed calls. 

In 2020, there was no reason not to call Pennsylvania for Biden after Thursday when it became obvious that he had crushed the early vote in the state.    And when he did overtake Trump on Friday morning, the networks and news agencies held on for another 30 hours or so to make the eventual call late on Saturday morning.  Completely inexcusable.

[UWS]

2000 : Calling Florida so early for Gore as FL shifted back too close call.