I guess it’s just that I don’t get math..but I’ve never understood how they can call a race for a candidate with 10% of the vote in..
It’s a combination of exit polling and actual results. It’s worked every time since 1952 with the exception of 2000 and that was due to some problems with VNS.
I can give you an example here in OH. The northern third is overwhelmingly Dem (give or take a precinct). The southern third is GOP. Columbus to Dayton is the battleground area. There are certain precincts in Dayton, where I live, that are battleground precincts-—when we see if Republicans are turning out you can pretty well predict they will go GOP (the exception was 2006-—but it worked in 2000 and 2004). If you poll those precincts, you don’t need to wait for either Cleveland or Cincy to come in-—they remain pretty constant. So by just tallying up the key precincts, you can usually count on the heavy Dem to go Dem and the heavy GOP to go GOP, and that will give you your number.
I do get math...and I’m wondering how anyone can call McCain the “front-runner” when all he’s won is a state with a grand total of 4 electoral votes (less than 1% of the nationwide total of 538).
It’s all based on entrance polls and projections coupled with the early returns.
That’s why errors occur.
Sadly, there was no error this time...