The New York Times reports:

It was just after 12:30 a.m. on election night, and Fox News was under fire.

“Arnon, we’re getting a lot of incoming here, and we need you to answer some questions,” the network’s chief political anchor, Bret Baier, said pointedly.

“Shoot!” Arnon Mishkin replied, his face breaking into a smile.

Roughly an hour earlier, Mr. Mishkin’s decision desk team at Fox News had made a bold call that instantly changed the tenor of the night: Arizona had gone to Joseph R. Biden Jr. The projection buoyed supporters of the Democratic candidate and sent President Trump’s aides into conniptions.

Even Mr. Trump himself took a whack, referring dismissively to Mr. Mishkin during an early-morning appearance at the White House as “the gentleman that called it.”

“It” was Arizona, a state that Mr. Trump won in 2016 but that Fox News now said had fallen into Mr. Biden’s column, just as Democrats were ruing a lackluster showing in Florida.

Trump campaign officials said they were taken aback by the Fox News projection: Jason Miller, the campaign’s chief strategist, claimed on Twitter that more than one million votes were outstanding in Arizona, and he baselessly accused the network of “trying to invalidate their votes.” John Roberts, the network’s chief White House correspondent, said the campaign was “livid.” A false rumor circulated online that Fox News had retracted its call.

Cue Mr. Mishkin, a management and polling consultant who has led Fox News’s decision desk since 2008. Far from caving to the pressure from Mr. Trump’s aides, he held firm, saying the campaign’s insistence that it could secure a win in the state was, simply, wrong. [Continue reading…]