Jake Tapper was left dumbfounded early Wednesday by an election map showing that Kamala Harris had failed to improve on Joe Biden’s performance four years ago.
“You asked: Are there any places that the vice president is overperforming Joe Biden in 2020?” John King, CNN’s chief national correspondent, said to Tapper as the pair looked at data displayed on the network’s notorious Magic Wall. King then changed the display to highlight states where Harris had outperformed Biden’s 2020 result by 3 percent or more—producing a completely dark map.
“Holy smokes,” Tapper said in response. “Literally nothing?”
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“Literally nothing,” King confirmed.
“Literally not one county?” Tapper asked. King clarified that the map showed states, and then switched to another display showing counties where Harris outperformed Biden by 3 percent or more. At that stage in the evening, just before 2 a.m. Eastern Time, Harris had only done so in 58 counties.
“There might be more out here in the West Coast,” King added. “It’s possible one or two more as they finish the count here. “But in the states that matter… in one county in battleground Pennsylvania, she’s outperforming President Biden by 3 percent or more.”
Around 90 minutes later, King called the race for Donald Trump, declaring: “He’s going to get there.”
“I’m probably not supposed to say that on television,” King said, noting that his network had not yet projected a Trump victory. “But he’s going to get there,” he said.
CNN eventually called the race for Trump at 5:30 a.m. ET.
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