The 2012 presidential election is still more than two weeks away, but on Friday a CBS News affiliate in Arizona called the race for President Barack Obama. For 17 seconds, Phoenix, Arizona CBS News affiliate KPHO ran a lower third graphic that showed that Obama had won the Nov. 6 election over Gov. Mitt Romney with 99% of the precincts reporting. The lower third graphic appeared around 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 19, during an episode of âThe Peopleâs Court.â The CBS News graphic showed Obama winning the election with 43 percent of the vote nationwide to Romneyâs 40 percent -â or 40,237,966 votes to 38,116,216. It is unclear who garnered the other 17 percent in the fictional election results. KPHOâs general manager did not return The Daily Callerâs request for comment by time of publication. UPDATE 12:10 p.m.: Michele Wallace of KPHO told TheDC that this was the result of a mistake made with a test graphic Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/21/c...-obama-weeks-ahead-of-election/#ixzz2A35QLGYi Hmmm, that's quick...
Well, you have them credit because they probably did get Obama's percentage about right - 43%. But Romney is going to get a lot more than 40%. They are probably low by 10+ on that number.
I still remember in 2000 every media outlet in the US except for Fox calling Florida for Gore BEFORE the Florida polls were even closed.
I think they had done that before but it wasn't as critical as in the Bush v Gore race. The FL panhandle which leans conservative is in the central time zone and closes an hour later than the rest of the state.