It has not been a good few weeks for Fox News Channel.
The network’s come under heavy criticism for growing anti-Trump bias.
And now Fox News admitted they made a major election night mistake that cost Trump big.
At 9 PM Eastern Time on Election Night, the Fox News Decision Desk called the Democrats retaining control of the House of Representatives and growing their majority by at least five seats.
Americans did not give this call much thought at first glance because all the pre-election polls showed the Democrats on pace to gain as many as 15 to 20 seats.
It led to the impression that the 2020 race would be a blue wave and the Presidency would be called for Joe Biden in an early election night landslide.
But the polls were wrong.
And the Fox News Decision Desk’s call of the Democrats gaining seats quickly blew up in the network’s faces.
Donald Trump powered a GOP turnout that no one expected and it ended up that Republicans will gain at least ten seats in the House and the Democrats will hold their smallest majority since the 1940s.
Not one Republican incumbent lost re-election.
Looking at the vote tallies around the country – even early on – it should have been obvious that Fox’s call for the Democrats picking up at least five seats was preposterous.
Even as Fox News reported on-air that Republican challengers were ousting Democrat incumbents, the network did not retract its projection.
It took Fox eight days to correct its inaccurate call on the House of Representatives.
“Special Report” anchor Bret Baier announced the correction by at first trying to pass it off like Fox got it half right in calling the House for the Democrats.
“Democrats have clinched a majority in the House by reaching 218 seats. There are still a handful of races undecided,” Baier explained to viewers. “On election night, the FOX News Decision Desk correctly predicted soon after 9:00 Eastern that Democrats would retain control of the House.”
The real error was the fact that Fox missed their projection by as many as 20 seats in what was a humiliating error.
“But they also estimated Democrats would add about five seats to their majority. That did not occur. Republicans have gained six seats with multiple races yet to be decided,” Baier added.
Fox getting the House wrong focused the attention back on the network’s call of Arizona for Joe Biden with just 73 percent of the vote in.
No other news organization, save the Associated Press, followed Fox’s lead and that call set the narrative that Joe Biden was on track for the Presidency.
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