Media election suppression? Early election-call hypocrisy in Iowa threatens democracy

For an industry that professes to care deeply about election integrity, many media outlets sure have a funny way of showing it.

Indeed, considering how they handled the Iowa Republican caucuses this week, one can’t help but question which side these people are on regarding the debate over democracy.

CNN, the Associated Press, NBC and others declared former president Donald Trump the winner in Iowa last Monday within mere minutes of the caucuses’s official start time. CNN projected a Trump victory at 7:29 p.m. Central Time, broadcasting the announcement from a voting center in Iowa even as Iowa Republicans were visibly preparing to vote. One minute later, AP called the caucuses for Trump. Ten minutes later, NBC did the same.

The caucuses officially started at 7:00 p.m. Central Time. They always feature multiple speeches on behalf of candidates to the gathered caucus-goers before the vote is held.

In the Hawkeye State, reporters and activists alike were stunned by the timing of the media projections, with some reporting that some precincts had yet to begin voting when they learned of Trump’s projected victory from their phones.

“We haven’t even begun speeches at the caucus that I am attending, and they have already called the state for Donald Trump,” reporter Ben Jacobs said after the AP and CNN made their calls.

Said the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Patricia Murphy after NBC declared Trump the victor, “I’m sorry — this is crazy to call it at 7:40. Nobody in Boone has even voted yet. Why would they stay if they saw this?”

“They already called the winner and we’re still waiting?” a Trump caucus captain told the Washington Post. “It’s kind of ridiculous.”

What’s even more ridiculous is that you can turn on CNN or NBC any time, click on the AP’s homepage, and you’ll see no shortage of content fretting about attacks on election integrity. There is no shortage of commentary worrying that “our core democracy” won’t last long, should voters come to doubt the fairness and integrity of their elections. 

Do you know what really undermines faith in the legitimacy of our elections? Calling races before voters have even had a chance to cast ballots.

Yes, Trump was always going to win Iowa. It was always going to be a blowout. No one following the campaign is going to dispute this. But that’s not the point. The point is that certain things, such as excessively early projections — that includes projections made before votes are cast — inspire doubt. What happened in Iowa is precisely the sort of thing that leaves voters to wonder whether the fix was in before it all began.

“Did my neighbor jump out of line after the race was called? What if my neighbor had stayed in line? How many people quit after it was called? Would things have been different if the networks waited?”

We shouldn’t ever have to ask such questions just because of irresponsible behavior by the media.

And this is to say nothing of how the competing primary campaigns were robbed of their chance to make a big show of fighting over second place, parlaying that success into possible future primary successes.

“The very, very early results show Trump winning big, but the early network call is a little questionable,” Semafor reporter Dave Weigel remarked. “People are still at caucus sites, and they have phones — how many people see the call and bail?”

It’s a fair question. Speaking of questions, why did the AP and NBC both ignore their clearly stated policies on calling races?

AP’s rulebook states specifically that the organization “will not call the winner of a race before all the polls in a jurisdiction are scheduled to close.” NBC promises that it “will not project a winner in a race until the last scheduled poll-closing time in a state.”

Perhaps there’s wiggle room for alternative interpretations of these seemingly clear rules, but whom does this serve? Not the voters. The networks? Maybe. Congratulations, you landed a “scoop” that lasted all of one minute, and all it cost was trust in an election.

The AP explains that it “declared Trump the winner of the Iowa caucuses based on an analysis of early returns as well as results of AP VoteCast, a survey of voters who planned to caucus on Monday night. Both showed Trump with an insurmountable lead.” This is not a good enough explanation for the deviation from the AP’s own rules.

“Caucuses started at 7 CST and races were called by 730. I guess you can pedantically argue 7 was ‘poll closing time,’” said data journalist Nate Silver. “But if you’ve ever covered a caucus, you know they can take 1+ hours since there are speeches. Most people hadn’t voted. Clearly violated spirit of the policy.”

It’s precisely this type of thing — a clear violation of the spirit of the policy — that will leave a person questioning whether his vote is being counted honestly. You do this to him enough, and the next thing you know, that same guy is storming the U.S. Capitol, demanding the vice president’s head.

If we care about election integrity and some semblance of public comity, let’s try acting like it.

Becket Adams is a writer in Washington and program director for the National Journalism Center.