On Election Night, the Associated Press called North Carolina's biggest race — between Roy Cooper and Michael Whatley for U.S. Senate — at 8:24 p.m. But at that point in the evening, only 2 percent of precincts had reported their results.
Jason Husser is a professor of political science and public policy at Elon University, where he directs the Elon Poll. He says it can be surprising to see a race called before all the results are in, but it’s often done.
Husser says that, as one of the most cautious among the major national groups calling political races, AP does not rely on complicated predictive math.
"They are largely counting how many votes are outstanding in a state based on how many came in," he says. "In the case of Cooper, there were so many early votes that were in favor of Cooper, the amount of outstanding votes were so small, they determined mathematically it was not plausible for Whatley to pick it back up."
Once all precincts were in, former Governor Roy Cooper bested Republican candidate Michael Whatley by nearly 20 points. Husser credits the win to Cooper’s strength as a candidate and his ability to capture the sentiment of North Carolinians concerned about the high cost of living.