NewsNation hopes for election night advantage with unique voting data
NewsNation is banking on data to draw viewers to election night.
The Nexstar-backed news channel, which continues to lead the way against more established cable competitors like Fox News MSNBC and CNN, is once again calling on the election data gurus at Decision Desk headquarters who helped NewsNation make the first call for the 2024 presidential election and gain some attention as a result. Executives hope the alliance will bear similar fruit this year.
“On election night, the data is more important than the anchors,” said Leland Vittert, one of the NewsNation personalities who will lead the network’s coverage Tuesday night.
Election Night 2025 will feature a wide range of information from every mainstream TV news channel, be it the expected – Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum helm Fox News coverage and Rachel Maddow leads MSNBC – or the Unusual – a CNN election night streaming only with Harry Enten, Charlamagne tha God and Ben Shapiro. But at least the networks hope to interest a broader audience in what the evening’s numbers could mean for the nation — and perhaps convince them to stick around even longer in the coming days.
NewsNation will be the only one of the major TV news channels not to use the Associated Press calls on election night. The AP has a strong reputation for accuracy in election reporting and recently unveiled a deal under which it will provide its data not only to Fox News Channel, which already had it as a client, but also to ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, all of which used Edison Research in 2024.
Decision Desk HQ “has the hot hand when it comes to calling elections, having called the last two presidential elections before any of our competitors,” said Bill Sammon, senior vice president of Washington DC content for NewsNation and its brother The Hill. The voting analytics firm has moved away from the exit polls that many mainstream news outlets rely on in favor of predictions based on demographic trends, turnout estimates and other types of data.
Sammon has extensive experience with Election Night calls, having been involved in Fox News’ decision to call Arizona for Joe Biden in 2020 and a call for Ohio to go for President Obama in 2012.
And while Election Night 2025 isn’t the biggest or most crucial, it has a lot to offer news lovers and politicians. News outlets will likely cover what could be a historic mayoral race in New York City; two red-versus-blue showdowns for the governor’s seats in New Jersey and Virginia; a contentious race for Virginia attorney general; and, in California, a vote on Proposition 50, which could disenfranchise Republicans and is seen as a countermeasure to red state legislatures redrawing voter maps to maintain a majority in the U.S. House.
“There’s plenty of drama here,” Vittert says.
There is also room for the unexpected. Correspondent Brian Entin has hit the road in a special NewsNation camper in an effort to interview people rarely heard on national news programs about their views on issues of critical importance to voters. Entin, driving through Utah, Wisconsin. Vermont, Ohio and New Jersey, says he and his team have already stopped at a highway truck stop to hear what’s important to long-haul truckers.
“You get to understand what’s going on in a different way,” Entin says, whether that’s talking to farmers about soybean exports or talking to people in Utah about the effects of gerrymandering.
Above all, Vittert says, NewsNation hopes to show that it is prepared for whatever might happen. “We go through every possible scenario that you never hope you’ll see on the air,” he says. “We’ve thought about a lot of things thoroughly. Yes, you’re prepared for anything, and I don’t think we’re going to have to call the race for the Republican candidate in the New York mayoral race, but that doesn’t mean we’re not willing to do it.”
