MSNBC Botches Election Day Coverage Before It Begins by Airing Fake 'Results'
MSNBC was forced to apologize on air after airing an on-screen graphic with election results the night before the U.S. midterm elections.
The news channel aired the graphic as MSNBC host Chris Hayes was talking to Joy Reid about the “enthusiasm” for gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum in Florida.
The graphic showed Gillum in the lead with 49.4 percent of the votes. Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis was shown trailing Gillum with 48.8 percent of the vote.
In the top right, the graphic showed that 99 percent of the precincts had reported.
Later on in the segment, Hayes clarified the graphic.
“Just want to say,” he said, “earlier this hour we showed a graphic of the Florida gubernatorial race. May have caught your eye because our system had inadvertently populated some test numbers.”
He added, “Obviously, we do not yet have any vote totals here, the night before the election. That was a misfire. Don’t worry. I was pretty confused when I saw it up there, to see it myself.”
According to Real Clear Politics, Gillum maintains a 4 point lead over DeSantis heading into election day.
Additionally, the Cook Political Report has called this race a “toss up.”
If polls are an indication of the results on election night, the Democrats are poised to take over the House while the GOP is expected to maintain its majority in the Senate.
On Tuesday, FiveThirtyEight forecasted that the Democrats have an 88 percent chance of taking over the House.
However, as Pew Research points out, in 2016 the majority of the polls were wrong that forecasted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to win the presidency by a large margin.
President Trump, moreover, maintains optimism despite what the polls show.
He told reporters in Cleveland, “There is a great electricity in the air like we haven’t seen, in my opinion, since the ’16 election,” according to the New York Post.
“So, something’s happening,” he continued. “I think we’re going to do very well in the House. I have never seen the energy that we have, the energy that this whole party has now, it’s really incredible.”
Voters head to the polls on Tuesday.
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