How AP Made the Early Call in Obama vs. Clinton Tussle in New Hampshire

By: E&P Staff One week ago, what was expected to be laugher in New Hampshire for Sen. Barack Obama turned into a cliffhanger. He narrowly trailed Sen. Hillary Clinton all night, despite polls and exit polls suggesting he would win, probably easily. Still, there were rumors that a big "college" vote for Obama was about to come in.

It was the Associated Press that lent some sanity in the process, making an early call as the night got late.

Mike Silverman, AP Senior Managing Editor, sent out a memo to staffers today that goes like this.
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The pundits and pollsters had it all figured out -- Barack Obama would win the New Hampshire primary and chase Hillary Clinton from the Democratic field. Then the exit polls came in Tuesday showing a close race, and the first real votes confirmed it.

As returns streamed in through the evening, projections editor David Pace, Concord COB [Chief of Bureau] Larry Laughlin and Washington COB Sandy Johnson studied computer models and county-by-county tables and neared a conclusion that Clinton's early narrow lead would hold -- even though some Obama-friendly college precincts were still out. When the cities of Nashua and Manchester showed substantial Clinton leads, it became clear there simply weren't enough unreported Obama votes out there to close the gap.

So at 10:30 p.m., AP moved a NewsAlert that called the race for Clinton -- the first news organization to do so. The networks, working off the same data, scrambled. NBC called it a minute or two later, but CNN and Fox waited 17 minutes -- an eternity in the world of cable news. (At one point CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, stalling for time, turned to political reporter and former AP staffer John King and asked him to explain the AP call.)

At night's end, Yahoo weighed in with an e-mail that read "Kudos from California. You guys were really on your game tonight." Canadian Press editor Eric Morrison messaged, "Congratulations on last night's Clinton call."

AP dominated newspaper play the next morning: A sample check showed 27 front pages for us with the nearest competitor, McClatchy, grabbing just four.

Also of note: For the first time, the newly converged Washington bureau used a phone intercom system to advise all hands about the impending call. That gave all formats a few minutes' preparation time they never had in the past when the operation was split between two different buildings.

For their great work helping AP set the news agenda on a key primary night, Laughlin, Pace and Johnson share this week's prize of $500.