How The AP Calls Midterm Races

How the AP Calls Midterm Races: Nearly 7,000 Contests and a New Voter Poll

AP's election chief says a race is not called until a trailing candidate has no path to victory: 'Our certainty is our standard.' The AP is surveying about 100,000 voters with six news networks.

Facts

Here is how the AP calls midterm races, according to a PBS NewsHour explainer published October 29, 2026. The Associated Press will tabulate results for nearly 7,000 races on Election Day, November 3, including congressional, state legislative and gubernatorial contests plus some local races. Disclosure: Stay Current News frequently cites AP reporting.
David Scott, the AP’s vice president for U.S. election services, said about 4,000 AP journalists collect results from precincts and election offices, and around 1,000 vote-entry clerks enter candidates’ totals into the AP’s election night reporting system.
The entered data is matched to election returns posted on county and state websites or delivered by electronic feeds. The AP’s Decision Team, made up of journalists, data analysts and political science experts who study elections full-time, then analyzes the results to determine winners, PBS reported.
A race is not called until competitors no longer have a path to victory. ‘Our certainty is our standard,’ Scott said. The AP called the 2020 presidential race for Joe Biden four days after Election Day, and it never called the 2000 Bush-Gore race because the Florida margin was too close.
Scott said the AP made three mistakes across more than 11,000 primary race calls this year, citing incorrect information from election officials and a technical issue.
For the first time in a major general election, the AP has partnered with broadcast networks to survey the electorate. The partners are ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, MS NOW and NBC News. About 75,000 voters will be surveyed before Election Day and about 25,000 more will be interviewed at polling places in 15 states on November 3, including early voters reached online, by phone or by mail.
The poll cannot be used to call races, but it can indicate the direction an election may be heading, PBS reported. The AP’s earlier system, AP VoteCast, was used for general elections from 2018 to 2024.

Source Read PBS NewsHour’s explainer here.

Image Voting booths inside Combined Polling Place Zion Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids, Minnesota on Election Day (53317086671) by Lorie Shaull, licensed under CC BY 2.0.