How NPR makes race calls in the 2026 election Voters are voting, ballots are being counted and results are starting to come in for 435 House races, 35 Senate races and 36 gubernatorial contests as well as ballot measures and thousands of state legislative seats. But how will NPR call races on election night? Determining a winner in any of the many races across the country is a big job.
That's why NPR partners with the — and has for many years — to ensure that races are called accurately. The has been calling races since 1848 and even now, nearly 180 years later, the process for making those calls is pretty simple. Here's how the AP explains its race calling process: Race callers collaborate with analysts who focus on statewide races, such as those for U.S.
Senate and governor, and elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. The decision editors on AP's Decision Team sign off on every race call for president, U.S.
Senate and governor, as well as races of significance for U.S. Together, they are looking at far more than just the overall vote totals. They study the incoming vote county by county.
In states where the information is available, they look at the vote by type of ballot: cast in person at polling places, or in advance by mail or in person. They are also in constant contact with AP's vote count team, in search of the latest information about what's been counted so far and how many ballots may still be left to count. Once AP has an idea of how many ballots are outstanding versus how many have been counted, their staff can start to tabulate the likelihood of a certain winner being victorious in a certain contest based on a lot of different factors: where the ballots that are outstanding are coming from, what the makeup of those communities looks like and even, how the individual chose to vote.
For NPR's part, once the AP calls a race, we will alert our broadcast and digital audiences on air as part of special coverage and online through digital stories. We also ensure that our hundreds of member stations also have access to that information. We will use AP's data to populate our election results pages so viewers can keep track, in real time.
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