Needle, needle, on the wall, who's the fairest candidate of all?Turns out, it totally depends on which needle you're asking. The
New York Times rolled out its infamous
election needle again on Tuesday night, with a competing needle available for election watchers on Fox News. But depending on which you were looking at, you'd have a very different impression of how the night is going for your preferred candidate:> Either NYT or
Fox News is getting this very wrong right now pic.twitter.com/Rj6rSwZQf9> > — Will Oremus (@WillOremus) November 4, 2020Let's, uhh, take a closer look at that:> A tale of two needles in North Carolina.> > NYT's needle has Trump at 88% to win NC.
> Fox's needle has Biden at 92% to win NC. pic.twitter.com/Hj7O9jWOvd> > — Mark Helenowski (@markhelenowski) November 4, 2020Nate Cohn, of The New York Times, offered some insight into why his publication's needles specifically might be skewing so much toward Trump. "[A]ll three states are in the same model," he explained, asking rhetorically if the results in
Florida might "bias us a bit in [North Carolina and Georgia], especially in Latino areas? I think that's at least possible in [Georgia] burbs."Alexander Panetta of The
Washington Post added his two cents, too: "Based on my comparison of counties [in North Carolina] in 2016 to counties in 2020 the Fox one makes more sense," he tweeted. "Except — it means SFA unless you know A) what the mail votes vs. in person are and B) how the votes by different methods break down."Maybe for 2024, we can get additional needles that project the odds of the needles being right?More stories from theweek.com COVID-19 keeps proving everyone wrong Is this the year the New South turns blue? Democrats' first priority