by Judson Phillips
Fact check: Joe Biden is not the President elect. This will come as a horrible shock to Fox News and the other left-wing media. A candidate becomes President Elect when either the other candidate concedes, or the Electoral College meets and votes that candidate into the Presidency.
Of course, Fox News’ biggest concern right now is probably not who has won the election. Perhaps one day, business students will read case studies on how Fox News destroyed its brand overnight.
One thing conservatives noticed early in the evening of November 3, was that Fox was calling states for Biden almost immediately, but Trump states were not called nearly as fast. One of the biggest questions of that night, is why did Fox call Arizona for Biden immediately after the polls closed?
Clearly, it was not to help Biden in the last few states. The only polls that were still open at the time were California and Washington state. Both of those are solidly blue. Oregon has gone entirely to vote by mail, so it would not affect that race.
So why was Fox News so anxious to call Arizona for Biden? If it wasn’t to push him across the line with the west coast states, what was the reason? Lawyers will tell people there are two kinds of evidence, direct and circumstantial. Direct is what you see, and circumstantial is inferred from other facts
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes books, once said, “When you eliminate the impossible, that which remains, no matter how implausible, must be the truth.”
Most political observers noted that Arizona was a must win for President Trump. Without Arizona, a state he carried in 2016, there were few paths left to the 270 votes need to win the electoral college.
When Arizona was called for Biden, President Trump led in important swing states, including Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Suddenly, in the hours after that call, massive numbers of votes started coming in for Biden. Many of these were suspect as Republican poll watchers were not allowed to watch the tabulation and improbably, some of these new vote tranches were 100% Biden votes. In all of these states, President Trump had a lead and it was whittled down.
Importantly, there was not a single swing state, where Biden had a lead, and that lead switched to President Trump.
It was obvious to anyone watching the Fox News election coverage, they desperately wanted to call the election for Biden. They celebrated when they could finally do it.
But again, why was it so important to call Arizona immediately? What was the effect of this call? It is impossible to say directly, but it is certainly true that after the Arizona call, all of the swing states that President Trump had a lead in, turned.
Days after the race, we know that Fox’s decision desk was manned by anti-Trumpers. Was it simply malice on their part against Trump or was the call a signal to those in the swing states that this election could be stolen by Biden’s team?
Will we ever know with certainty what actually happened that night? Fox is now firmly in the constellation of left-wing media outlets. The Fox News conservatives have known for twenty years is dead. Will someone try to investigate and find out what really happened on the evening of November 3?
Probably not.
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Judson Phillips is a long time conservative pundit and founder of Tea Party Nation.
