On Tuesday’s installment of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, the eponymous host defended the media’s decision to project Donald Trump as the winner of the Iowa Caucus even before all precincts and started voting by claiming voters couldn’t change what they were going to do. Meanwhile, correspondent Vaughn Hillyard blamed modern technology for the media’s decision as if it was somehow compelled to make the call.
Mitchell began, “Vaughn, let's talk about last night. The DeSantis campaign, they cried foul after the Iowa results were called before all the precinct halls wrapped up caucusing, but as you know better than anyone, when people walk into those halls, they are locked and voters can't, you know, change what they're going to do.”
What is Mitchell talking about? At each precinct site a campaign representative gives a short speech to voters arguing why their candidate is the best. Announcing the winner before this process even starts can be demoralizing and to lead people either leaving or changing their votes because the sense of inevitability can overwhelm genuine preference.
However, Hillyard didn’t see what the problem was, “Right, there was frustration last night that some precincts take longer to do their caucus than others. What happened last night was not only were folks answering questions at the entrance polls coming in and media organizations were using those entrance polls along with some of the early precincts and early results coming out of them to determine Donald Trump was well on his way to securing this Iowa victory.”
As he continued, Hillyard almost got it, “That led to numerous organizations making the calls and we heard not only from our reporting team on the ground at several of those caucus sites but also from the DeSantis campaign, frustration that some folks were getting notification that Donald Trump had been declared the winner of Iowa yet had yet to take part in their own local precinct caucus.”
Ultimately, however, Hillyard laid the blame with technology, “And, so, you know, this is part of the caucus process and part of the ever developing technology and the frustrations that come with both of those.”
Modern technology was not the reason why the media refused to wait a few more minutes until voting across the state began, it was the desire to be first and then to not be left behind. Hillyard, however, repeated his earlier point that it didn’t really matter, “Andrea, for Donald Trump, clearly though, he was well on his way to victory despite any notifications that anybody was getting on their phone here.”
That Trump was going to win by a wide margin regardless is not the point. The media should not be projecting races before voting even starts in several places across the state.
Here is a transcript for the January 16 show:
MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports
1/16/2024
12:05 PM ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: Vaughn, let's talk about last night. The DeSantis campaign, they cried foul after the Iowa results were called before all the precinct halls wrapped up caucusing, but as you know better than anyone, when people walk into those halls, they are locked and voters can't, you know, change what they're going to do.
VAUGHN HILLYARD: Right, there was frustration last night that some precincts take longer to do their caucus than others. What happened last night was not only were folks answering questions at the entrance polls coming in and media organizations were using those entrance polls along with some of the early precincts and early results coming out of them to determine Donald Trump was well on his way to securing this Iowa victory.
That led to numerous organizations making the calls and we heard not only from our reporting team on the ground at several of those caucus sites but also from the DeSantis campaign, frustration that some folks were getting notification that Donald Trump had been declared the winner of Iowa yet had yet to take part in their own local precinct caucus.
And, so, you know, this is part of the caucus process and part of the ever developing technology and the frustrations that come with both of those. Andrea, for Donald Trump, clearly though, he was well on his way to victory despite any notifications that anybody was getting on their phone here.
