With 97 percent of the vote counted in Arizona, Joe Biden’s holds a narrow 19,000 vote lead over President Trump. That’s one-half of 1 percent, down from the 8 percent lead Biden held on election night when FOX News called Arizona for Biden. At that time the head of the so-called Decision Desk turned up to explain that Biden’s 8-point lead over Trump would expand substantially when the uncounted votes were tabulated (video below).
Regardless of the ultimate outcome and Mishkin’s omniscient tone, the results continue to belie Mishkin’s explanation. FOX News owes its viewers a frank accounting. That is the case I have argued here and here.
On FOX’s Media Buzz yesterday, Howard Kurtz took a generalized look at the performance of the media in the election. Appearing as a panelist, FOX News contributor Mollie Hemingway made a few discreet observations that implicated FOX. See the Federalist column “Mollie Hemingway On The Media: ‘They Lie, They Lie, They Lie. And Then They Lie’” and video below.
Hemingway tweeted out a link to the Federalist story on her appearance (below). Good golly, Miss Mollie.
Mollie Hemingway On The Media: 'They Lie, They Lie, They Lie. And Then They Lie.’ https://t.co/nj6XFVbuy5
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) November 8, 2020
Kurtz himself played a clip of Mishkin calling Arizona for Biden and assuring viewers that Biden would widen his lead over the 8 percent he held at the time. He reported that Jared Kushner had called Rupert Murdoch to complain that evening but otherwise. Kurtz paid tribute to the independence of FOX’s news division without noting the rather significant error in Mishkin’s analysis that is documented in the video clip.
Breitbart’s John Nolte has written here about the backlash against the performance of FOX News on election night. Nolte observed that “[t]he backlash…went nuclear after Fox News maliciously and erroneously called Arizona for Joe Biden on Tuesday night — a state that is still too close to call.”
UPDATE: Tom Bevan makes a related point (below). I think the key point is how blatantly erroneous Mishkin’s “analysis” proved to be. It calls for an explanation.
It doesn't matter if Fox's call of AZ ends up being correct in the end. It was totally unnecessary to call it as early as they did. And the fact they jumped to call it, after waiting hours to call FL when 97% was in and Trump up 3+points is an awful double standard.
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) November 6, 2020
MORE: With 98 percent of the vote counted, according to RealClearPolitics, Biden retains a 15,000 vote lead over Trump. The margin represents .47 percent of the vote total. The Arizona Secretary of State’s tabulation is posted here.
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