Crack election night operation across nation delivers news of Trump’s win, GOP victories elsewhere

By AP Election Teams

At The Associated Press, collaboration takes many forms and comes in many sizes across the world. But nothing compares to Election Day (and night) in a presidential election year. This year, months of diligent preparation from all corners of the organization — and a crack election night operation in Washington and across the nation — made for coverage that was comprehensive, accurate, innovative and, perhaps most importantly in a contentious era, not overheated. 

For election night 2024, it seemed that AP had it all. A wise and accurate decision desk. Extensive data visualization and graphics that put AP’s election data on our consumer website for the first time. A live blog that blew expectations out of the water. Robust explanatory layers, both in small, incremental bites and step-back pieces. Audience engagement on social platforms in near-real time. An entire streamed live “show that’s not a show” hosted by two AP political correspondents. Our AP VoteCast survey allowed AP journalists explain the Why of Election Day, at the national and state level. Reporters, photographers and video journalists on the scene, wherever that scene was, captured the mood and the moments across the country. 

During the week of the general election, the election results pages alone collected a total of 50,136,682 pages views from more than 14 million visitors, as APNews.com drew 60% more traffic than in 2020 — a year in which White House race call didn’t come for several days. The election live stream collected 13,135,752 views on YouTube, well over double AP’s previous best live stream on New Year’s 2024.

Perhaps most salient, though, was this fact: Just before AP declared Trump the winner in the early hours of Wednesday, not one but two of Google’s top 10 search terms were ours — “AP” and “AP News.”

To tell the story of a U.S. presidential election takes not just the effort of the News Division but, truly, the collective effort of the entire company. And that was before 2024, when AP’s ambitions rose to new heights. It is not hyperbole to say AP attempted, and succeeded, in covering the story of Donald Trump’s return to the White House in more ways, with greater depth, for more audiences, than ever before. Every team aimed to do more and better than before, and they succeeded. 

For carrying off one of the fundamental tasks of democracy: bringing the world election results and helping people on all platforms make sense of it all, the company-wide elections coverage earns this week’s Best of the AP — First Winner. 

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