Originally Posted by Snake Doctor

When they make predictions or projections like that, it's based on the exit polling + what precincts still have to report, and what the historical tendencies of those precincts are.

Ever since the networks fucked up Florida in 2000 they're pretty careful about declaring someone a winner.

What's really weird about this isn't that Hillary won, it's that ALL of the polls showed Obama with a big lead, including the internal polls of all the other campaigns.
The Clinton campaign spent the whole day lowering expectations.

Really weird how ALL of the pollsters got this one wrong.