While accurate, the projection for Joe Biden created an existential challenge for the network that still has ramifications today.
Four years later, a debate continues over Fox News's decision to call the state of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night 2020.
Was the call made too early? Did Fox's Decision Desk have the right numbers?
That projection, while ultimately vindicated, drew intense blowback from Donald Trump's supporters and led to a temporary exodus of viewers to more conservative channels such as Newsmax. The relatively unknown man in charge of Fox's Decision Desk, Arnon Mishkin, came under intense scrutiny from conservatives, who accused him of being a Democratic operative.
On Tuesday, viewers -- and the campaigns themselves -- will once again be watching closely to see what Fox does.
While the network never disavowed the Arizona call, it has conceded that it was not properly presented to viewers. Rather than warming viewers up with an announcement that a call was incoming, Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer stumbled onto the projection while working through a map of the election, noticing offhandedly that the state had turned blue.
"What is this happening here? Why is Arizona blue? Did we just call it?" asked Hemmer, who was then told that Fox's Decision Desk had called it.
"Time out," anchor Bret Baier said at 11:21 p.m. "This is a big development."
Biden's lead ended up being razor-thin, as more of the outstanding votes came in for Trump than Fox's model had projected. (The model relied on both registered voter surveys and actual vote tallies.)
Fox News declined to make any of its journalists or election number-crunchers available for interviews for this story. But in other interviews, the network has telegraphed that things will be different this time around -- though Mishkin will be back at the helm.
"I think that there's going to be a much greater focus on making sure that when we make a call, that call is made by the right anchor," Mishkin told Axios last week. "We've adjusted some of our communication systems to make sure that happens."
Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum acknowledged "there were a couple of surprises [in 2020] in terms of everyone being on the same page with the understanding that a call was about to come." This time, she told Axios, "I think that we will have a much clearer way of demonstrating why they were able to make that call."
Fox has also tweaked its model for predicting outcomes to better factor in whether people vote by mail or in person.
"We've created a new model based on the vote count which is much more focused on either getting vote by type and then using that in the model, or knowing that you're not going to get vote by type and then making estimates around on that," Mishkin told Politico in a separate interview.
Mishkin admitted his stomach was "churning" in 2020 as the margin in Arizona grew closer, a result he attributed to issues with the survey data Fox used.
Fox has also rolled out new digital bells and whistles, including "virtual set technology and new touchscreen applications for the FOX News Voter Analysis," augmented reality functionality for anchor Hemmer's election wall (a.k.a. the "Bill-board"), and what the network calls a "super desk" for anchors Baier and MacCallum.
But that's not likely what will be top of mind for Fox's audience as the results start rolling in.
Fox's Decision Desk has a sterling reputation, and Mishkin is "widely respected," according to political analyst and election forecaster Larry J. Sabato, who serves as director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
But internal communications released as part of a defamation lawsuit filed against the network by Dominion Voting Systems (which Fox settled for $787.5 million) revealed how frustrated anchors and executives were with the timing of the Arizona call, the manner by which it was made and the external criticism they received.
"This situation is getting uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable," Baier wrote in an email two days after the election to Fox News executives, suggesting the network "pull" the call. "I keep on having to defend this on air. And ask questions about it. And it seems we are holding on for pride. ... And it's hurting us."
Washington managing editor Bill Sammon assured Baier that "it's not pride that's got us sticking to the call -- it's math," adding: "I'm confident we will be proven right and all will be well."
Fox founder and owner Rupert Murdoch was even blunter, saying in an email that he hated the network's Decision Desk and pollsters and was "praying" the network's Arizona call would be off, "to prove them wrong!"
More importantly, the internal communications showed conclusively that Fox management considered the ramifications of the Arizona call and were concerned about backlash from Trumpworld, raising questions about whether political considerations or viewer sentiments could factor into projection decisions.
"I'd have to be very naive not to wonder if the same thing could happen again this year," Sabato said.
While Fox was the first network to call Arizona for Biden (NBC News and CNN wouldn't project a winner for another nine days), it ended up being the last network to report him as the winner four days later.
"Fox did not concur until 11:40 a.m. [on Nov. 7], some 14 hours after Mr. Sammon's election team internally concluded the race was over," the New York Times reported in March 2023.
Murdoch questioned that delay but said it might save face with an angry Trump. In those internal communications, he wrote to his son Lachlan Murdoch, "We should and could have gone first but at least being second saves us a Trump explosion!" (Lachlan agreed in his reply: that "[I]t's good to be careful. Especially as we are still somewhat exposed on Arizona.")
Even though the Arizona call was correct, Fox management took steps to appease the network's critics by nudging out some of the people most associated with the decision.
Murdoch directed his management team on Nov. 20 to "let Bill go right away," referring to Sammon, and "also the other guy," referring to Chris Stirewalt, the network's political editor. Those departures would "be a big message with Trump people," he said.
"We agree a 'big shake-up' message is good for us," Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott responded. A few days after the election, Scott bemoaned that Sammon failed to understand "the impact to the brand and the arrogance in calling AZ."
Still, despite his concern about how the Arizona call was perceived, Murdoch said in his sworn deposition in the Dominion case that the team's independence was "sacrosanct." When asked by Dominion's lawyer whether he would instruct the team to change a projection, he said he wouldn't do it "because [he trusts] these people."
Outside experts, including Sabato, feel the same way. "I've followed this closely for many years and I believe this piece of Fox is on the level," he said. "I treat it as I would the polls from [other] mainstream networks and their decision desks."
And Mishkin said he's not concerned about whom Fox's viewers are rooting for. "I think the pressure the team feels is: Focus on the numbers, and focus on who's going to win, and let us know," he told Politico. "And I don't feel any sort of pressure like, 'Call it our way. Make our audience happy.'"
Daniel Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said there's no reason to believe the network's election calls won't be guided purely by the numbers. He cited Fox's recent election polling during this campaign season, which has shown similar results to other surveys.
"Whatever concerns people have about Fox News, their polling operations have always been well-done, high-quality polling," he said. "We have not seen any change in that. We have not seen any movement to the right. And that means that they are retaining their independence, as far as we can tell."
But Mo Elleithee, who served as a Democratic contributor on Fox News from 2016 to 2022, felt a concerning shift at the network following the 2020 election.
He called the decision to part ways with Stirewalt "heartbreaking." He saw it as evidence that "while the data side was rock-solid, the editorial side was not."
Elleithee, the founding executive director of Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service, claimed that his appearances on Fox started drying up after he told network producers in the days after the election that he didn't want to be scheduled to debate people who made unfounded allegations of fraud.
Ultimately, he declined to renew his contract and left Fox after the 2022 midterms, as first reported by CNN journalist Brian Stelter.
"The executives were very good to me. The producers were very good to me," he said. "If I had concerns, they would take my call, but at the end of the day, the way it played out on air I was no longer comfortable with it."
After 2020, Elleithee is wondering how Fox hosts would handle potential claims of fraud made on air this time around: "Do their hosts push back on conspiracy theorists, on election deniers?" (In response, a Fox News spokesperson pointed to past examples of the network's journalists rebutting Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen.)
This fall, Fox employees received an email instructing them to participate in a mandatory course with the tagline "Fox Integrity In All Content." Employees were told that the training was "designed to ensure that Fox employees compete the Fox way -- with fierce dedication to their work, backstopped by the First Amendment and an uncompromising commitment to accuracy and truth," according to a copy of the email viewed by The Post.
In one session, Patrick F. Philbin, who served as deputy counsel to the president during Donald Trump's administration, spoke about defamation law and the constitutional protections afforded journalists and answered questions from employees.
The sessions drove home the importance of fact-checking, pushing back on potentially defamatory comments and always calling companies and individuals for comment, according to two Fox journalists who participated but spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.
While defamation training is relatively common at media companies, including Fox, it takes on a special significance at the network, which is still facing multiple legal actions stemming from its coverage of the 2020 election. The two employees said they were required to complete the online training by October.
"It was very, very clear that they do not want a repeat of November 2020," one of the journalists said.