How Election Night Race Calls Will Work on Tuesday: 4,000 AP Reporters, Two Vote Counts, and No Call Until the Trailing Candidate Cannot Catch Up
When New Jersey's polls close at 8 p.m., the winners viewers see called will rest on a system Reuters has now laid out: the Associated Press count, Decision Desk HQ, and decision desks that refuse to call a race early.
Most television networks and digital outlets will rely on two providers for Tuesday night's vote counts, Reuters reports: the Associated Press or the election-data firm Decision Desk HQ. The AP, a nonprofit newsroom, has counted votes in every United States election since 1848, and for the 2026 midterms it will deploy more than 4,000 reporters at county election offices and polling locations, feeding the decision desks at ABC News, CBS News, Fox, CNN and NBC News.
The discipline is conservative by design. The AP calls a race only when the trailing candidate cannot catch up: it works from vote totals reported by election officials, estimates how many votes remain uncounted from past patterns and early-vote data, and refines that estimate through the night with actual returns. Fox's decision desk makes its own calls in statewide races using the AP count and its own analysis; final projections require unanimous agreement on the desk.
For New Jersey, the clock is simple: the first calls anywhere come after Indiana and Kentucky polls close at 6 p.m. Eastern, and New Jersey's own polls close at 8 p.m. Every one of the state's twelve House races and the Senate race will be called under this system on Tuesday night — which is why a call, when it comes, is a conclusion about the remaining vote and not a guess about the counted one.
