America does exit polls differently to the UK – here’s how and why
There are two main differences between election coverage in the UK and the United States.
Last July, at 10pm, Sky News’ exit poll graphic predicted a Labour landslide and a massive defeat for the Conservatives.
Confirmation of this forecast was a long time coming since constituency results are only announced by local returning officers once all votes have been counted.
US election latest: Data reveals potentially decisive trends in two swing states
Americans do things differently and for good reason. Polling stations close much earlier in the east than they do in the west. When voting has hours to go in some states, they’ve already started counting elsewhere.
There is a “wait for it” moment when voting closes in west coast states and the broadcasters can reveal the national exit poll headline, but this won’t tell us the winner.
Instead, it will tell us the types of people who have voted for Harris or Trump and the issues that dominated the outcome.
So far, one-nil to the UK, I think. But, here comes the next bit.
Instead of postponing announcements about votes until every last one has been accounted for, each state then begins releasing figures as and when votes are being counted.
And they do so in such a way where we can compare this time with previously. Not for them declarations in sports halls with dodgy microphones but rather running tallies for precincts (think our local council wards) and counties (ranging from tiny to huge).
It’s these data that US broadcasters such as NBC will use to “call” each state’s vote for president. The television networks are big players in the US election drama.
Early voting in Henderson, Nevada, on 19 October. Pic: AP
Over 160 million votes will be cast in the election, more than five times the number cast in our general election last July.
And while the outcome of our election was in no doubt once the broadcasters’ exit poll revealed Labour had won a landslide majority, that will be far from the case in the battle for the presidency.
As in the UK, a consortium of US broadcasters, comprising NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN, form the national election pool.
This commissions the consumer research company, Edison Research, to survey voters in over 600 polling places as people exit their polling station.
The survey also includes telephone interviews with people casting a ballot before 5 November. Once completed, the US exit poll will have obtained responses from over 20,000 voters, a similar number that were collected for the general election.
Two surveys of voters, therefore, but now important differences in their purpose become clear.
The UK version is entirely focussed on predicting the distribution of seats among the competing parties and, thereby, the winner and its likely House of Commons majority. Over recent elections it has proved pretty good at achieving this task.
Pic: AP
US pollsters are more interested in campaign issues that mattered to voters. Pic: AP
By contrast, the US version is much less concerned about predicting the winner (and there are very good reasons for taking this approach) and more interested in the campaign issues that mattered to voters, how they viewed the candidates and what factors motivated them to make their choices.
The survey identifies key demographic characteristics for each respondent – men or women, age, ethnic heritage, and educational qualifications.
Combined with questions relating to their choice for president this time around, their usual partisan preference, Democrat, Republican or none of the above, the survey data enables a considered and detailed analysis of what kinds of voters made what kinds of choices and their reasons for doing so.
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How will America vote on election day?
Broadcast organisations, including Sky News, will use the 2024 exit poll to highlight differences between men and women voters in relation to the abortion issue.
The poll will also show how the economy ranked among voters and whether Donald Trump’s stance on low taxation gained or lost him votes among different social groups. Did Kamala Harris’s association with the Biden administration and the challenges of illegal immigration prove to be a positive or a negative in her bid for the White House?
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All very interesting, but aren’t we all tuning in to see who’s won? While the US exit poll can, in theory, be used for this purpose it is unwise to do so in what is proving to be an extremely close race.
Sky’s tracker of national polls shows the Democrat blue line and the Republican red line moving ever closer together but with Harris currently marginally ahead. But even if she loses the national vote, the polls would still be within the margin of error.
Of course, she could yet win more votes than Trump and still lose the election, as Hillary Clinton discovered when she lost to him in 2016. Winning votes is necessary, but it’s where those votes are and the available number of electoral college votes that matters the most.
Trump beat Clinton because his votes were better distributed than hers. History could be repeated.
Releasing precinct-level voting numbers as counting progresses is essential to US election coverage. The national election pool employs over a thousand researchers to collect votes from each of the 50 states.
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Additionally, NBC News will augment these figures with more detailed analysis prior to making its call for each state and the electoral college votes for Harris or Trump. The first to reach 270 college votes wins.
Professor John Lapinsky of Pennsylvania University leads NBC’s decision desk.
Although the broadcasters have pooled resources to bring us the exit poll, each will independently analyse the actual voting figures as they become available.
Lapinsky and his team on behalf of NBC will call the state for either Harris or Trump only when they are satisfied that the leading candidate’s vote is sufficiently large that he or she cannot be overtaken.
This a big moment for each broadcaster, especially when the race is likely to be close and where social media may be playing a significant role in stoking accusations and counter-accusations of a fraudulent election.
With so much at stake, these decisions will take time and patience.
Our July election was done and dusted in time for the breakfast bulletins. It could be days of counting, recounting and legal appeals before we know the winner of the 2024 presidential election.
Two people have been killed after a suspect shot at firefighters responding to a fire in the US state of Idaho, authorities have said.
Police were still “taking sniper fire” near the city of Coeur d’Alene on Sunday afternoon, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office said.
Crews were responding to a fire at Canfield Mountain around 1.30pm and gunshots were reported around half an hour later, the force said.
Pic: Reuters
Sheriff Bob Norris said officials believe the two killed were firefighters, and he did not know if anyone else was shot.
“We don’t know how many suspects are up there, and we don’t know how many casualties there are,” he said. “We are actively taking fire sniper as we speak.”
Mr Norris said the sniper appeared to be hiding in the rugged terrain and using a high-powered rifle, adding he had instructed his deputies to fire back.
“I’m hoping that somebody has a clear shot and is able to neutralise, because they’re not at this point in time showing any evidence of wanting to surrender,” the sheriff said.
Pic: Reuters
Governor Brad Little said “multiple” firefighters were attacked.
“This is a heinous direct assault on our brave firefighters,” he said on X. “I ask all Idahoans to pray for them and their families as we wait to learn more.”
The president of the International Association of Firefighters said a third firefighter was in surgery.
In a statement on social media Edward Kelly said the firefighters “were ambushed in a heinous act of violence”. He added: “Two of our brothers were killed by a sniper, and a third brother remains in surgery.”
The sheriff’s office in neighbouring Shoshone County said authorities were “dealing with an active shooter situation where the shooter is still at large”.
Smoke billows into the air after several firefighters were attacked while responding to a fire. Pic: Reuters
The fire was still raging, Mr Norris said.
“It’s going to keep burning,” he added. “Can’t put any resources on it right now.”
The FBI was sending technical teams and tactical support to the scene, its deputy director Dan Bongino said.
“It remains an active, and very dangerous scene,” he said on X.
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Canfield Mountain is a popular hiking and biking spot on the outskirts of Coeur d’Alene, a city of around 55,000 people in northern Idaho.
Donald Trump has said the US government has found a buyer for TikTok that he will reveal “in about two weeks”.
The president told Fox News “it’s a group of very wealthy people”, adding: “I think I’ll probably need China approval, I think President Xi will probably do it.”
TikTok was ordered last year to find a new owner for its US operation – or face a ban – after politicians said they feared sensitive data about Americans could be passed to the Chinese government.
The video app’s owner, Bytedance, has repeatedly denied such claims.
It originally had a deadline of 19 January to find a buyer – and many users were shocked when it “went dark” for a number of hours when that date came round, before later being restored.
However, President Trump has now extended the deadline several times.
The last extension was on 19 June, when the president signed another executive order pushing it back to 17 September.
Mr Trump’s latest comments suggest multiple people coming together to take control of the app in the US.
Among those rumoured to be potential buyers include YouTube superstar Mr Beast, US search engine startup Perplexity AI, and Kevin O’Leary – an investor from Shark Tank (the US version of Dragons’ Den).
Bytedance said in April that it was still talking to the US government, but there were “differences on many key issues”.
It’s believed the Chinese government will have to approve any agreement.
The president said the identity of the buyer would be disclosed in about two weeks. Pic: Fox News
President Trump’s interview with Fox News also touched on the upcoming end of the pause in US tariffs on imported goods.
On April 9, he granted a 90-day reprieve for countries threatened with a tariff of more than 10% in order to give them time to negotiate.
Deals have already been struck with some countries, including the UK.
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The president said he didn’t think he would need to push back the 9 July deadline and that letters would be sent out imminently stating what tariff each country would face.
“We’ll look at the deficit we have – or whatever it is with the country; we’ll look at how the country treats us – are they good, are they not so good. Some countries, we don’t care – we’ll just send a high number out,” he said.
“But we’re going to be sending letters out starting pretty soon. We don’t have to meet, we have all the numbers.”
The president announced the tariffs in April, arguing they were correcting an unfair trade relationship and would return lost prosperity to US industries such as car-making.
Iran will have the capacity to begin enriching uranium again in “a matter of months”, the UN’s nuclear watchdog boss has said.
Rafael Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that US strikes on three sites a week ago had caused “severe damage” but it was not “total”.
Mr Grossi told CBS News: “The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that.
“But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.”
Iran still has “industrial and technological capabilities… so if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again”, he added.
A satellite overview shows excavators at tunnel entrances at the Fordow site in Iran. Pic: Maxar Technologies/Reuters
Iranian nuclear and military sites were attacked by Israel on 13 June, with the Israelis claiming Tehran was close to developing a nuclear weapon.
The US then carried out its own strikes on 22 June, hitting Iranian nuclear installations at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, under Operation Midnight Hammer.
Iran has insisted its nuclear research is for civilian energy production purposes.
US President Donald Trump said last weekend that the US deployment of 30,000lb “bunker-busting” bombs had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme.
But that claim appeared to be contradicted by an initial assessment from the US Defence Intelligence Agency.
A source said Iran’s enriched uranium stocks had not been eliminated, and the country’s nuclear programme, much of which is buried deep underground, may have been put back only a month or two.
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Did the US destroy Iran’s nuclear sites?
Mr Trump has rejected any suggestion that the damage to the sites was not as profound as he has said.
And he stated he would consider bombing Iran again if Tehran was enriching uranium to worrying levels.
At a news conference on Thursday alongside US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General Dan Caine, told reporters the GBU-57 bunker buster bombs had been designed in some secrecy with exactly this sort of target in mind.
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US: Iran nuclear sites ‘obliterated’
The head of the CIA has also said a “body of credible intelligence” indicates Iran’s nuclear programme was “severely damaged”.
Director John Ratcliffe revealed that information from a “historically reliable and accurate source” suggests several key sites were destroyed – and will take years to rebuild.
Read more from Sky News:
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Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country “slapped America in the face” by launching an attack on 23 June against a major US base in Qatar, adding the nation would never surrender.
The 12-day air conflict between Israel and Iran ended with a US-brokered ceasefire.
But the Iranian armed forces chief of staff, General Abdolrahim Mousavi, has said his country doubts Israel will maintain the truce.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said the US strikes had caused significant damage to Tehran’s nuclear facilities.
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