News outlets declared Trump the winner while Iowans were still gathered

Only half an hour into Monday's Iowa caucuses had passed when CNN projected former President Donald J. Trump as the evening's winner. The Associated Press declared Mr. Trump the winner a minute later, and soon every major network had followed suit.

Although many caucuses had not yet concluded, news organizations said that surveys of voters taken before their arrival at the caucuses — the Iowa equivalent of exit polls, which are conducted after voters have cast their ballots — had provided enough data for their election experts to to declare a winner with confidence. .

The early call angered allies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who accused the news media of biasing caucusgoers who had yet to cast their ballots. “Are you joking?” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told reporters at a DeSantis event in West Des Moines. “They haven't even started voting yet and have heard all the speeches and AP mentions it?”

For its part, the AP said its race call, which The New York Times relied on in reporting its own results, was based on “an analysis of early returns and results from AP VoteCast,” its own voter survey system that the outlet said “Trump showed an insurmountable lead.”

That survey involved more than 1,500 voters who said they planned to participate in a caucus, and was conducted in recent days. According to The AP, the survey found that Trump had a significant lead among men and women, and in every age group and geographic region of Iowa.

The AP said its decision office also analyzed early results from eight Iowa counties received within the first half hour of the start of the caucus, showing that Trump had received “far more than half of the total votes counted.”

CNN's projection was based in part on a so-called “entrance survey” conducted by Edison Research on behalf of several major television networks. On the air, host Jake Tapper told viewers that Trump's projected victory was “based on his overwhelming lead in our entrance poll of Iowa caucusgoers and some early votes coming in.”

A CNN executive said the network had enough data to announce a race call at 8 p.m., the official start time of the evening's caucuses, but that the network had chosen to wait until it believed all voters had registered. their caucus locations. .

ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC also projected Mr. Trump as the winner.

Nicholas Nehamas reporting contributed.