Hosts with the most
US election night belongs to one network.
Soon, very soon, the slickest team in live media will be settling into their swivel chairs, firing up their laptops and adjusting their earpieces. Even now the Magic Wall is being polished, the live feeds are being tested, the guests are being booked, and the studio floor is being swept.
Along with everyone else in the known universe, this evening I’ll be settling in for the quadrennial TV marathon that is the US Presidential Election. And when the chads are down and the votes in Cobb County are being tabulated, there’s really only one channel to tune into – CNN.
Unlike UK elections, where the winner is revealed within seconds of the polling stations closing at 10pm, the sheer size and complexity of the American electoral map makes for a long-haul viewing commitment – so you need to be in good hands. Let’s not forget that in 2020 it was a four full days (with Rudy Giuliani in mid-rant against the surreal backdrop of Four Seasons Total Landscaping) before the race was finally called for Joe Biden. In 2000, the Bush v Gore wrangling over disqualified votes in Florida extended into mid-December.
Britain’s main broadcasters may be high-minded and well intentioned, but a decade’s-worth of salami-slicing editorial budgets has left them struggling to offer much beyond predictable vox-pops, Looney Tunes pundits and wide-eyed bromides about it all being “down to the wire” or “a photo-finish”. With few actual experts left on staff, their coverage is not going to be any match for the reporting firepower and granular analysis of the US news giants.
So for the big night it’s over to Jake Tapper and team at the CNN Election Center in Washington DC.
Tapper could be the Head Boy of Network News High. Yes, he’s a swot and annoyingly good at sports, but it’s impossible not to like him. Which makes him the perfect anchor for such a complex, open-ended operation. Smooth and reassuring, he’s never not watchable and entirely unflappable – happy to joke with colleagues and guests, interjecting with psephological trivia right on cue.
Rivalling Jake in the smoothness stakes is silver fox Anderson Cooper, who projects the sort of confidence that could only come from being an authentic Park Avenue blue-blood – and CNN’s highest-paid presenter ($12m). Of course, Cooper’s mother was the original “multi-hyphenate”, Gloria Vanderbilt, so he grew up surrounded by celebrities and servants. All of which makes him fascinating before he even utters a word. Also fascinating: he began his career interning at the CIA (as one does), and was for many years a close associate of Anthony Bourdain.
But the heart of the action is over at the Magic Wall – an electronic results screen so huge and sophisticated it makes Peter Snow’s swingometer look like the original Mesopotamian abacus. John King is the undisputed King of the Wall, and possibly the only person alive able to explain the significance of a 0.02%-turnout shift in Maricopa (Arizona) or Kalamazoo (Michigan) at 4am. Viewers love John’s Wall so much that this time around CNN’s top techies have created a parallel smartphone version that means you won’t run the risk of missing a KEY RACE ALERT while you’re fetching beer and buffalo wings from the kitchen.
Mere feet away from King’s throne sits Dana Bash, CNN’s Chief Political Correspondent and… his ex-wife! How fabulously modern and utterly professional is that? Bash is another of CNN’s stars, earning $3m a year, which is frankly not bad, although admittedly not Anderson Cooper good. She’s serious. She’s earnest. She co-chaired the debate that sealed Biden’s fate. She’s hot on the issues and has been seen to spar a little with Tapper.
I dare say we’ll hear too from forthright Kaitlin Collins. Banned from Trump’s White House for the impertinence of asking questions about his relationship with Vladimir Putin, she fell out publicly with the then President’s media stooges, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway – a journalistic badge of honour.
And finally, let’s hear it for the mighty Wolf Blitzer, whose name might suggest a high-end kitchen appliance but is instead a walking, talking encyclopedia of Beltway what-not. Host of the suitably macho-sounding SITUATION ROOM WITH WOLF BLITZER, he has an especially personal stake in the outcome of this year’s election. Tragically, the Wolfman was merrily Instagramming Sunday brunch & cocktails in an exclusive DC power brasserie at the exact moment Biden pulled out of the race – and was forced to interrupt his Eggs Benedict to race back to the studio, risking dyspepsia. Politics is a cruel business.
Happy viewing.