When news organizations called the race for Trump

Former President Trump’s decisive victory in the 2024 presidential election officially came in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, though by midnight Eastern, it was clear the Republican nominee was on a path to clinch another term in the White House.

The first network to call the race for Trump was NewsNation, which made the call in partnership with election forecaster Decision Desk HQ, which also partners with The Hill. Both entities are owned by Nexstar Media Group. The Decision Desk HQ projection came at 1:22 a.m., shortly after it called Alaska and Pennsylvania for Trump.

Fox News was second. It called Pennsylvania for Trump at 1:22 a.m. and called the entire race for the former president at 1:46 a.m.

Other networks such as CNN and MSNBC did not call the presidential race for several more hours, with final race calls by both cable channels coming shortly after 5:30 a.m., after Trump had clinched the battleground state of Wisconsin.

The Associated Press, which feeds race results to a number of smaller outlets and local news organizations, called the race for Trump at 5:31 a.m. as did The New York Times.

CBS News called the race at 5:31 a.m., while ABC called it at 5:34 a.m.

The Times’s widely followed election forecasting “needle” showed Trump’s likelihood to win increasing as the night went on, projecting him with a win probability topping more than 90 percent by midnight.  

But for much of the night, the commentary on social media and across much of cable news made clear Trump was likely to win handily.  

“The trajectory we are on, still more votes to be counted, is an overwhelming Donald Trump victory in the electoral college,” CNN’s John King said at the network’s big board just after 1 a.m. “Democrats are going to have to ask themselves ... in some of these key areas ... what happened?”