In the run-up to election night, and throughout the early hours of their broadcasts, television news anchors urged viewers to settle in for a long wait.
Leading polls showed a dead heat. Ballots are often counted slowly. Correspondents joked about sleeping in their studios.
“It’s a tight race, it’s a tight race, it’s a tight race,” Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC at 9:46 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. About 40 minutes later, Bret Baier cautioned his Fox News viewers that “we’re not there yet,” pledging that the network would “wait and see.”
But as midnight approached on the East Coast, the daylight between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump was growing. And in swing state after swing state, the advantage was moving in the same direction: Trumpward.
“This does feel more like 2016 than 2020,” Chris Wallace said on CNN, signaling that the four-day wait that preceded President Biden being declared the winner was unlikely to be repeated.
Shortly before 2:30 a.m., every network switched to a live feed from Florida: a speech from Mr. Trump declaring victory.
Only Fox News, NewsNation and Newsmax had called the presidency for Mr. Trump at that point, but the writing appeared to be on the wall.
Unlike four years ago, anchors were not forced to delve into the minutiae of absentee ballot counts and arcane legal challenges. The legal pundits on retainer at the networks stayed on the sidelines.
The trend lines were clear — and some anchors picked up on the direction of the results earlier than others.
In the 5 p.m. hour, Mr. Wallace seized on an exit poll that showed nearly three-quarters of voters were dissatisfied or angry with the direction of the country. “In conventional terms,” Mr. Wallace said, “it would be a miracle that Kamala Harris could win with that kind of headwind.”
His colleague Audie Cornish suggested such a verdict was premature. “It’s early in the night,” she said.
As the evening wore on, the networks remained mostly cautious in their coverage. On Fox News, the Trump loyalist Sean Hannity predicted that the former president would take Georgia and North Carolina; Mr. Baier was quick to remind viewers that neither state had yet been called.
Later, with Mr. Trump seemingly at the doorstep of victory, Mr. Baier repeated a phrase he had uttered earlier in the night: “the biggest political phoenix-from-the-ashes story that we have ever seen — ever.” (The Fox pundit Laura Ingraham called it “the greatest comeback, I believe, in history.”)
The mood was more subdued on MSNBC. After 2 a.m., when the NBC News decision desk called Pennsylvania for Mr. Trump, Ms. Maddow told viewers that the result “presents an insurmountable future for Kamala Harris and the Democratic ticket.”
The MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle said the evening’s result was not necessarily about Ms. Harris or Mr. Trump. “I think this is about the American people,” Ms. Ruhle said. “We know exactly who he is, and we — or the majority of the people who voted for him, and created this outcome — chose this.”
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