The Man Behind the Fox News Decision Desk

An early call in Arizona shines light on Arnon Mishkin’s outsize role in Fox News’ election coverage.

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Fox News’s decision to declare Joe Biden the winner in Arizona at 11:20 p.m. Tuesday prompted a swift response from the Trump camp. Campaign adviser Jason Miller said that night on Twitter that the network was “a complete outlier in calling Arizona,” and that Fox News was trying to “invalidate” the 1 million outstanding votes in the battleground state Trump won in 2016.

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey also pushed back on the network’s early decision to throw Arizona into Biden’s column. “It’s far too early to call the election in Arizona,” Ducey said on Twitter late Tuesday night. “Election Day votes are not fully reported, and we haven’t even started to count early ballots dropped off at the polls. In AZ, we protected Election Day. Let’s count the votes—all the votes—before making declarations.”

But Arnon Mishkin, the Fox News Decision Desk director, stood by his election team’s call. “I’m sorry, the president is not going to be able to take over and win enough votes,” Mishkin told his Fox News hosts on air shortly after the announcement. “We’re not wrong in this particular case.” Mishkin plays a crucial role every election cycle by calling winners and losers for the most-watched cable TV network in America. But he’s a strange creature in the Fox News universe. A 65-year-old registered Democrat—who told the New York Times in late September that he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016—Mishkin has been contracted as a paid consultant rather than a full-time employee for the network since 2008.

Since Election Night, the race in Arizona has tightened and all the other outlets that call winner—aside from the Associated Press, which called Arizona for Biden at 2:50 a.m. Wednesday—have left the state uncalled. As of late Thursday night, Biden leads Trump by 46,000 or so votes with 90 percent reporting, a lead of 50.1 percent to 48.5 percent.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jason Gibson

    fox news division is pretty legit. I don't watch fox anymore ever...........but when I did it was because their news shows were so substantive. The panel on special report gave me an ABC this week (the abc this week round table used to be the best thing in the universe will george will moved on) moment every night of the week.

    If I recall a certain less shaggy Jonah Goldberg and considerably less gray steve hayes often made appearances when I was watching

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  2. Dimmy Carter

    Very interesting

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  3. Bear

    Here is a question. Why are so many House races not called when there is a margin of victory and the vote is being shown as 100% in (IL-14, NY-01, 02, 03, 18, 19, 22, 24, etc.)? Similarly, House races are not called when the lead is larger than the remaining vote to be counted (NY-11).

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  4. Frank Pepp

    It looks like he was wrong to call it. But the idea that call in anyway affected anything other than perceptions appears silly.

    And he'll end up being right, if only because of luck.

    The attack on him and the integrity of the election is a FAR bigger issue.

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  5. Joe1776

    If you want to hear what the man behind the decision actually said in support of his decision you can listen to him here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJDKS3d2RHk

    He said after 75% of the vote was in that Trump would only get about 44% of the remaining vote. He was wrong. Trump did much better than that.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    Props to Andrew Sullivan for supplying this quote from Marcus Aurelius; “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”.

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  7. Joe1776

    “I’m sorry, the president is not going to be able to take over and win enough votes,” Mishkin told his Fox News hosts on air shortly after the announcement. “We’re not wrong in this particular case.”

    Fox said they were being transparent but they never asked him on Tuesday night what was the minimum vote he knew Biden would win by. I mean if he says I know Biden will win by at least 3 votes should he really be making the call that early? IMO just saying well see I ended up being right doesn't really justify an early call.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Dawn

    The polls were closed when they made the call. How in the world does their projection effect the actual vote count so that they would be "putting a finder on the scale"? Team Trump demanding Fox to reverse the call makes them look ridiculous.

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    1. Joe1776

      Hawaii and Alaska may have still been open. I am not sure about other states. But I agree it is not as egregious as when they called Florida for Hillary early. But it was irresponsible to call that then.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Dawn

        Thanks. You are correct. Alaska closed at midnight est and Hawaii closed at 1am est. I can say that I have never voted or not voted based on the results of another state, but that's me.

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        1. Joe1776

          Yes I agree with you personally but sadly this sort of thing *does* effect turnout.
          Alaska and Hawaii are not swing states so no big deal. I agree it was silly to make a big deal about it. But if we are going to have an entire dispatch article on it then lets talk about it.

          IMO if someone calls a state early they better have good reason to do it and they should be able to tell us about where they think the minimum vote will come in for whoever they call it for. Here Fox never gave us the minimum so they were not at all transparent in my opinion. Transparent would have been if he said "look Biden will win by over 100,000 votes" or "Biden will win by over 5%". But instead he just kept repeating "Biden will win" while keeping his cards very close to his chest. That is not transparency that is opacity.

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      2. Laurie

        Thanks. Sounds like it's more for morale than actual interference.

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  9. Mark Holmlund

    I think (the news side of) Fox News has acquitted itself very well throughout the election. Compare with CNN, where one of its news anchors is comparing Trump to a turtle on its back being fried in the sun.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Mudskipper

      I watched FOX on election night just briefly. (I managed to catch the moment they flipped Arizona blue.) What I noted was they weren't doing a lot of explaining about outstanding votes and how the race could change based on the where the outstanding votes were. CNN did a much better job of that.

      This concerns me because someone watching CNN could come away with the expectation that Pennsylvania would slowly trend blue and understand why it would. I'm not sure that a Fox viewer would come away with the same expectation, which would feed the fraud narrative. Now, perhaps I happened to catch them during my brief viewing at the wrong time and they did do a good job of setting realistic expectations. I'd be curious to know what other people who watched Fox for a longer period of time think.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

        I refrain from watching FOX News only because I don't want to get slimed by the FOX infotainment line-up. Otherwise I think their news division has been doing comparatively well. Although I would bet a good segment of FOX watchers are steaming that they can't get their daily fix of disinformation and outrage from them.

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    2. ChrisJM

      Anderson Cooper really isn't a news anchor, to be fair - or I certainly don't view him that way - though admittedly he is there sort of moderating the political panel.

      In any case, though quite the metaphor, it was apt. Trump knows he's going to lose, is pissed about it. Since doing the "right" thing isn't in his DNA, the only thing left for him to do is to claim fraud and a rigged election.

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      1. Mark Holmlund

        I thought Lemon and Cuomo were the equivalent of Hannity and Ingraham. Didn’t know Cooper was included in that group.

        Who does straight news at CNN? Everything I see is just panel discussions.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

          It's tough to do straight news when you get someone like Trump. Even straight news sounds partisan when you're covering someone who is so off the wall. It's like comedians who complain they don't even have to write jokes about the guy - they just have to repeat whatever he said on any particular day.

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        2. ChrisJM

          I've always lumped all the prime time shows on all the cable news channels in the same "non-news" pile. Tapper and Blitzer, I guess, fall more into the straight news roles.

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          1. Mark Holmlund

            Sorta. Tapper is on at 4 PM and does mostly panels, no?

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  10. Avatar photo
    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    It's not as if FOX News has any influence on the results of votes already cast. It's a "projection". That's it. It's either correct or incorrect but it certainly doesn't effect the tabulation of votes in Arizona. Presumably, if no one says it then it's not true?

    I find it hilarious that now FOX is being suspected of becoming the Deep State, RINO, Never-Trumper Left. Shows just how unhinged some have become.

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    1. Joe1776

      I think it just shows fox is more diverse than some other msm. And the polls were likely still open in some states when the call was made.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

        I think it shows that the FOX News Division still possesses some professional ethics.

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