How does The Sacramento Bee call a winner in an election? Here’s how it works

The Sacramento Bee relies on the Associated Press to call races at the state and national level, including races in the Legislature. For local races, The Bee, like the AP, does not make projections or name likely winners.

Editors in the newsroom declare winners when the percentage of votes tallied and other factors — such as the historic average of votes cast and precinct-level voting data — indicate any trailing candidate couldn’t collect enough votes to bridge the leader’s margin.

As the AP puts it in its race-calling methodology, “Can the trailing candidates catch the leader? Only when the answer is an unquestionable ‘no’ is the race ready to be called.”

Race calls are not made as quickly as years past because of the change to vote by mail. This is because Election Day polling is no longer available, as voters mail in ballots; early indicators of votes aren’t always reliable as ballots are counted in a centralized location and takes more time to process compared to ballots at a polling station.