“Why are we making that call?” asked Fox News anchor Bret Baier. | AP Photo/Carlos Osorio Media Fox News goes out on a limb on House Democrats

On a night when the much loved — and hated — New York Times needle faltered and the vaunted FiveThirtyEight projections had to be reined in, another news organization was happily touting its new voter analysis system: Fox News.

At 9:33 p.m., anchor Bret Baier declared, “We are now ready to make one of the biggest calls of the night. The Fox News Decision Desk can now project the Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years.”


"A lot of listeners out there, their heads are exploding, but this is going to be a very different Washington," his colleague Chris Wallace said.

At a time when it seemed the night could be turning away from Democrats, the Fox News call of the House was the first by any media outlet. And for about 50 minutes, Fox News was alone in its certainty, providing possibly the biggest drama in a night when the overall themes were roughly what pundits expected. Some liberals seized on the declaration as cause for hope, while others on both sides of the political spectrum took to Twitter with evidence-free speculation about why the network had made its call so early.

Fox News attributed its quick call to its new “ Fox News Voter Analysis ” system, launched in partnership with the AP ahead of the midterms. Rather than rely on notoriously flawed exit polls, Fox said its new methodology is based on surveys conducted across 50 states by NORC at the University of Chicago, a non-partisan research group, in combination with voting results collected by the AP.

It was not clear why other networks were more cautious in calling the House, but as the Fox News panel moved to discuss the implications of the Democratic win — hurdles for Trump’s agenda, myriad investigations and talk of impeachment — it became conspicuous that the news organization was on an island all by itself.

Imaginations ran free among partisans on both sides.

David Simon, the creator of The Wire and a liberal, baselessly tweeted , “Get to the polls, West Coast voters. And stay in line. The dirtiest, low-bottom bunch of Murdock-licking fraudwhores in all of mass media are throwing up a last ditch bit of political maneuver. Fox won't quit until the republic itself is in the grave.”

Meanwhile, right-wing figure Jack Posobiec implied without any evidence that Fox News was trying to help Democrats, presumably by dissuading Republican voters from remaining in line to vote.

A few minutes after 10 p.m., with still no other networks making the call, Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt appeared on air to explain what happened.

“Why are we making that call?” Baier asked him.

“We are just that good,” Stirewalt replied, crediting the Fox News Voter Analysis system. He said, for example, that the close Kentucky sixth district race, ultimately won by the Republican in a squeaker, provided one crucial indicator. “That was a good one to watch. The very fact that that race was as close as it was told us and told me that the Democrats were getting the numbers they need. They have no business doing so well in a district like that.”

Stirewalt offered few other details about how his team drew its conclusion but added, “All I know is the Fox News Voter Analysis is humming like it's just a Testarossa Ferrari.”

Finally, at 10:22 p.m., NBC News was next to call the House for the Democrats. The announcement immediately prompted chatter on the MSNBC set about the congressional oversight likely to face the Trump White House in 2019.

“This is a gamechanger. This changes Washington,” said MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush White House aide and Trump critic. “This changes life for the White House staffers. And this changes Donald Trump’s life immediately.”

It was after 11 p.m. before CNN made its own official call, further validating Fox News' conclusion. The latter network was also first to declare that Republicans would maintain control of the Senate, at 10:23 p.m., though that call was less controversial by that point in the night.

For all the build-up heading into election night, there was little other drama on the news networks. Sean Hannity, a day after rankling Fox News brass by appearing on stage with President Donald Trump at a rally, did not appear on air, even though the network had said he would join fellow primetime hosts Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson on the broadcast. Hannity said on his radio show earlier in the day that he never planned to participate in the election coverage. Fox News did not respond to a request for comment about the matter.

Meanwhile, Ingraham sparred on set with news-side colleague Wallace after she suggested the results Tuesday signaled the “the Democrats are going to more of an [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez party,” a reference to the Democratic socialist from New York City.

“I don’t think that is a fair thing to say about the Democrats. I think that is a complete mischaracterization,” responded Wallace, who pointed to more moderate Democrats winning elsewhere in the country.

“If you’re going to give the Republicans credit for holding onto the Senate,” Wallace added, “I think you have to give the Democrats credit for actually flipping the House.”

Fox News tends to attract a more conservative audience, but Democrats looking for updates had fewer options than usual, as data intensive projection systems from both The New York Times and FiveThirtyEight faltered. For much of the night, the Times’ projection needle was down, and it did not launch until after Fox News had already called the House.

Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight’s projection figures were jumping around fast enough to give their devotees whiplash, causing editor in chief Nate Silver to tweet , “We think our live election day forecast is definitely being too aggressive and are going to put it on a more conservative setting.”

For some worried Democrats waiting for any indication of how the night would turn out, surprisingly, Fox News became the media outlet of choice.

“Suddenly,” observed Columbia Journalism School professor Bill Grueskin, “my timeline is filled with citations of Fox News.”

