How Election Night Race Calls Will Work on Tuesday, From the AP Count to the Decision Desks
Most networks will rely on the Associated Press vote count or Decision Desk HQ on Tuesday night, Reuters reported, with the AP deploying more than 4,000 reporters and calling a race only when the trailing candidate cannot catch up.
News organizations will call winners in one of the country's most closely contested midterm cycles on Tuesday night long before all the votes are counted, Reuters reported on Sunday. Most television networks and digital outlets rely on two providers for vote counts: the Associated Press or the election-data firm Decision Desk HQ. The first calls will start soon after polls begin to close, first with Indiana and Kentucky at 6 p.m. Eastern, and shortly after in Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia at 7 p.m. Eastern.
The AP, a nonprofit newsroom that has counted votes in every U.S. election since 1848, said it would deploy more than 4,000 reporters at county election offices and local polling locations for the 2026 midterms, gathering data for the decision desks at ABC News, CBS News, Fox, CNN and NBC News, Reuters reported. The AP calls a race only when the trailing candidate cannot catch up, using vote totals and estimates of how many votes remain uncounted. Decision Desk HQ collects counts from official state sources and requires unanimous team agreement and a sign-off from its head of data science, Scott Tranter, for final projections.
Retractions are rare but they happen, Reuters noted: Decision Desk HQ withdrew a call in the Democratic primary for a special election in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District earlier this year, and in 2018 the AP retracted a call in California's 21st Congressional District after Democrat T.J. Cox took the lead. For Los Angeles County voters, polls close at 8 p.m. Pacific on Tuesday, and county vote centers are open Sunday and Monday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Standards pass by LAS-006 was completed for this elections item.
