U.S. Election 2016: What Time Will The Election Be Called?


While it feels like the 2016 election has dragged on endlessly, everything will finally be over Tuesday night on Election Day, and many Americans are wondering what time the election will be called and the next president will be announced.

Past Elections

Thankfully, we can gather data from previous presidential elections to try to determine what time the 2016 election will be called and the process will be over.

TV Newser put together a helpful guide outlining when each major television news network declared the winner of the presidential election in 2012, the year President Obama defeated challenger Mitt Romney to win another four years in the White House. All of the major networks called the election early after 11 p.m., with NBC/MSNBC calling first at 11:12 p.m. and ABC bringing up the rear at 11:25 p.m.

[Image by Drew Angerer/Getty Images]

In 2008, when the presidential election was not as close a race as in 2012, the networks called the election as early as 11 p.m. Keeping these times in mind, it looks like we may know the winner of the 2016 election just a few short hours after the polls close in most states.

However, as the 2008 and 2012 election timelines illustrate, the time that the election is called depends on how close of a race the 2016 election is. In order to determine that, we need to examine what time each state’s election winners are announced.

State-by-state Announcements

Many states, due to the closeness of their races in the presidential election, are not called by 11 p.m. the night of the election. Some states may take hours for all of their ballots to be counted. Often, the election is still called at an early time because a candidate has amassed more than 270 electoral votes and no longer needs the results of the remaining states to determine their win.

If the 2016 election is a close race, however, the states with closer races may delay the time that the winner of the election is announced. Florida, for example, is an extremely tight race during this year’s election, with both candidates polling ahead at different times during the race. Additionally, Florida is considered a must-win state for Trump, so if both candidates are gaining ground in similar numbers, the election may not be called until Florida is ready.

[Image by Win McNamee/Getty Images]

In a piece for Bustle, Natasha Guzman explains what time the most extreme elections in the past 40 years have been called.

“The quickest election to be called was Reagan’s 1980 landslide, in which he ultimately won 44 states, and NBC News announced the winner at 8:15 p.m. The most drawn-out election decision was the infamous 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, with a recount of Florida’s extremely close results not allowing for an official decision until Dec. 12 of that year.”

Erick Erickson, a political blogger, tweeted an early prediction of the 2016 election winner. Erickson used the website 270 to Win to assemble a map that predicted that the time the 2016 election would be called will be 9:05 p.m., assuming Clinton was the clear winner of Florida. However, as the race has tightened considerably since the day this image was tweeted, it remains to be seen how accurate Erickson’s prediction will be.

Essentially, whether or not the election will be called at an earlier time depends on how extreme of a win Clinton or Trump has in huge swing states like Florida. If the race is looking close, election viewers may be in for a late night. And in 2012, the time that the Florida election was called was after midnight.

The 2016 Election May Be An Outlier

C-SPAN Digital and Social Media Specialist Jeremy Art tweeted out an image of a handwritten list showing not the times every presidential election has been called but the times of every presidential concession and victory speech since 1988.

What’s notable about this image is the 2000 election, which was called on December 13th, weeks after the actual election day. While it’s unlikely that the 2016 election will have quite this staggering degree of uncertainty, voters should still prepare themselves for the possibility that the election will be called later than the night of Election Day.

Additionally, because there are a high level of undecided voters during the 2016 election, polls may be less accurate than usual. There, states that have been considered safe for Clinton or Trump may actually become swing states, while some swing states may become solid victories for one presidential candidate over the other.

While many Americans probably wish they already knew who wins the 2016 election, unfortunately no one can predict the future – not even Nate Silver. What time the 2016 election will be called is dependent on swing states like Florida and Ohio.

[Image by Scott Olson/Getty Images]

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