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.
US
Trump criticises Biden’s death row decisions – saying he backs capital punishment for ‘rapists, murderers, and monsters’
Donald Trump says that when he takes power next month he will direct the US Justice Department to “vigorously pursue” the death penalty.
The US president-elect, 78, said he would do so to protect Americans from what he called “violent rapists, murderers and monsters”.
Mr Trump was responding to President Joe Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of almost all federal inmates on death row – whom Mr Trump called “37 of the worst killers in our country”.
“When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense,” Mr Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social.
“Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”
He continued: “As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.
“We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!”
President Biden, 82, announced on Monday that he would reduce the sentences of 37 of the 40 federal death row prisoners to life in prison without the possibility of parole, saying he was “guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender”.
The three others the president did not spare are Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018; Dylann Roof, who gunned down nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who carried out a 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and injured almost 300 others.
(L-R) Robert Bowers, Dylann Roof and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
‘I condemn these murderers’
Despite sparing the lives of 37, Mr Biden added: “Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss.”
During Mr Trump’s first term in office between 2017 and 2021, the US Justice Department put 13 federal inmates to death.
He has since said he would like to expand capital punishment to include child rapists, migrants who kill US citizens and law enforcement officers, and those convicted of drug and human trafficking.
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Denmark to boost Greenland’s defence
Pic: Reuters
Mr Biden, who ran for president opposing the death penalty, put federal executions on hold when he took office in January 2021.
His latest decisions come after a coalition of criminal justice advocacy groups, former prosecutors and business leaders wrote letters to the White House asking for Mr Biden to commute the sentences ahead of Mr Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.
Pope Francis also appealed to Mr Biden, who is Catholic, to reduce the sentences to imprisonment.
Unlike executive orders, clemency decisions cannot be reversed by a president’s successor, although the death penalty can be sought more aggressively in future cases.
Denmark has announced plans to boost its defence spending for Greenland with a “stronger presence in the Arctic” – a few hours after Donald Trump repeated his call for the US to buy the vast island.
Danish defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the package would amount to a “double-digit billion amount” in krone, or at least $1.5bn (£1.2bn).
He told the Jyllands-Posten newspaper the money would be used to buy two inspection ships, two long-range drones and two sled dog teams as well as more personnel for Denmark’s Arctic Command in the capital Nuuk.
Denmark will also upgrade the Kangerlussuaq Airport so that it can handle F-35 fighter jets.
Donald Trump has restated his desire for the US to control Greenland. Pic: Reuters
Greenland, which sits between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, is 80% covered by an ice sheet and is home to a large US military base.
The world’s biggest island, whose capital is closer to New York than the Danish capital Copenhagen, has mineral, oil and natural gas wealth.
But development has been slow, leaving its economy reliant on fishing and annual subsidies from Denmark.
“For many years, we have not invested sufficiently in the Arctic, now we are planning a stronger presence,” Mr Poulsen said.
He called the timing of the announcement an “irony of fate”, coming just hours after Mr Trump’s latest comments on purchasing the territory.
With the Pituffik air base, Greenland is strategically important for the US military and its ballistic missile early-warning system.
Greenland defiant
The president-elect sparked anger on the territory when he wrote that American ownership and control of the island was an “absolute necessity” for “purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world”.
Its prime minister Mute Egede hit back, saying: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”
And Danish defence minister Mr Poulsen said: “My response to Trump is the same as the prime minister’s. Greenland does not want to exchange the Commonwealth for other relations. But that is up to Greenland itself.”
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Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede. File pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also proposed buying Greenland during his first term in office – an idea the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called “absurd”.
Greenland has been part of Denmark for more than 600 years and gained autonomy from the country in 1979.
Under Greenland’s self-government act, enacted by Denmark and Greenland in 2009, Greenlanders are recognised as a people or nation entitled to the right of self-determination, with the option of independence.
On Monday, in an announcement naming Ken Howery as his ambassador to Denmark, Mr Trump wrote: “For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
He has also threatened to take back control of the Panama Canal, accusing Panama of charging excessive rates to use the waterway, which allows ships to cross between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
American Airlines was forced to ground all flights in the US on Christmas Eve due to an unspecified technical issue.
The airline did not immediately say why it was stopping all flights, but social media was quickly abuzz with travellers worrying about getting to their loved ones for the holiday.
A groundstop notice was lifted not long after it was issued, but the possibility of disruption remains with so many flights needing to make up time.
Earlier on Tuesday, the airline said on social media: “An estimated timeframe has not been provided, but they’re trying to fix it in the shortest possible time.”
The Federal Aviation Agency said American Airlines was reporting “a technical issue and has requested a nationwide ground stop”.
In an update on Tuesday afternoon it said: “American Airlines reported a technical issue this morning and requested a nationwide ground stop. The ground stop has now been lifted.”
The groundstop notice that was later rescinded
Passengers on social media reported having their flights stuck on the runway at various airports and being sent back to the gate.
American Airlines operates thousands of flights per day to more than 350 destinations in more than 60 countries.
It comes months after a faulty CrowdStrike software update led to worldwide flight cancellations.
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