It’s almost Election Day in America. Millions of voters have already cast ballots either early in person or by mail. The scene is set for what pollsters expect could be an extremely close election. CNN’s veteran team will provide around the clock coverage across platforms including crucial on-the-ground reporting from battleground states around the country and expert analysis from the Magic Wall as votes begin to come in and projections are made. Follow coverage on CNN, CNN International, CNN en Español, CNN Max, CNN Apps and CNN.com. Max Subscribers can follow election coverage on CNN Max in English and Spanish. You can find results and live updates in the CNN Election Center.
We caught up with CNN Political Director, David Chalian to hear what CNN viewers can expect.
How are you and the CNN team preparing for election coverage?
We are preparing by actually having mock election nights with test data playing out all the various scenarios we may see next Tuesday and beyond. We are also preparing by making sure our reportorial resources are out in force in the battleground states. We are deploying a team of reporters, correspondents and producers to be in all the critical states that will determine the outcome of this election and become experts in all the rules for casting and counting ballots. These teams of reporters are also in constant contact with key state and county elections officials who will be able to give us critical real-time information to share with our audiences.
How does the CNN decision desk make a call?
CNN has a robust decision desk operation, including statisticians and political experts who are steeped in the demography and voting patterns of each of the key counties and congressional districts in the country. These experts use models as the votes come in that tell you who can win and who can lose. When our decision desk gets to 99.9% certainty that the candidate behind in a race cannot overtake the candidate ahead with the outstanding vote, only then are they able to make a projection. That is the level of certainty CNN requires to make a call.
What will be new and or different about CNN’s election coverage this year?
In each election since its debut in 2008, we have made significant advances in how the iconic CNN Magic Wall powers our ability to bring audiences real-time results and John King’s s expert context surrounding those results as the election unfolds throughout the night. In 2024, we are turbocharging those advancements with the launch of CNN’s digital Magic Wall which puts all of those critical real-time results and crucial historical and trend context directly in the hands of every single user.
