# AP VoteCast **AP VoteCast** is the [[Associated Press]] survey of the electorate, built to replace the traditional exit poll. AP and [[Fox News]] stopped working with the networks' [[National Election Pool]] after 2016. AP built VoteCast with NORC at the University of Chicago, tested it in 2017 and first used it nationally in the **2018 midterms**. Fox's version is the Fox News Voter Analysis. ## How it works VoteCast does not interview people outside polling places. It surveys registered voters by phone and online over the final days of the campaign, through election day. That design is meant for an electorate in which a large share of ballots are cast before election day, where a polling-place interview cannot reach them. The 2024 survey, as described in AP-NORC's methodology report: | | 2024 | |---|---:| | Registered voters interviewed | 139,938 | | From a probability sample of state voter files | 43,413 | | From opt-in online panels | 93,022 | | From NORC's AmeriSpeak panel | 3,503 | | Field period | Oct 28 – Nov 5 | The final weights are adjusted to match the certified results in each state. In 2020 the sample was "more than 110,000" (NPR). ## It is an input to race calls > [!warning] Corrected 2026-10-06 > This page and [[Exit Poll]] used to say the survey has no role in race calls. **That was wrong.** AP's own explainer, as syndicated in 2024, says: "Data from AP VoteCast makes it possible in some cases to call non-competitive or less competitive races as the polls close… the AP will only declare a winner if AP VoteCast data confirms the expected result." It also works in the other direction: "The AP will not call a race when polls close if AP VoteCast's results indicate a deviation from the state's long-standing political trends." So the survey gates the **poll-close calls** in lopsided races. Competitive races are called from the counted vote, the operation mapped at stage 7 of [[How Election Results Are Transmitted and Reported]]. The distinction that matters is **survey versus count, not survey versus call**. The survey can confirm or hold back an early call, but it never adds a vote to anyone's total, and when it disagrees with the count, the count wins. ## The 2025 merger [[SSRS]] bought [[Edison Research]], the National Election Pool's exit-poll contractor, on October 15, 2025. On October 28 it launched **The Voter Poll by SSRS**, with ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC as partners. SSRS describes it as merging "the methodologies of the Edison/NEP Exit Poll and AP VoteCast/FOX News Voter Analysis." It covered the 2025 New York City, Virginia, New Jersey and California contests. Whether the November 2026 national product still carries the VoteCast name, or runs only as the Voter Poll, could not be confirmed as of this writing. ## See Also - [[Associated Press]] · [[Exit Poll]] · [[National Election Pool]] · [[Edison Research]] · [[SSRS]] - [[How Election Results Are Transmitted and Reported]] · [[Decision Desk HQ]]