FACT CHECK: Did RealClearPolitics Rescind Biden’s Win In Pennsylvania, Therefore Stripping Him Of His President-Elect Status?

Elias Atienza | Senior Reporter

A post shared on Facebook claims RealClearPolitics (RCP) retracted its call for President-elect Joe Biden winning Pennsylvania.

Verdict: False

Archives of the RCP website show that it never called Biden as winning Pennsylvania. RCP’s president has confirmed the claim is inaccurate.

Fact Check:

The vote tallies of some states are still too close to call a winner as ballots continue to be counted, according to the Wall Street JournalThe Associated Press, along with other media outlets, announced Nov. 7 that even without the undecided states, Biden had won more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. A post shared on Facebook features a screen grabbed tweet claiming RCP rescinded its call for Biden winning Pennsylvania and its 20 Electoral College votes, putting him 11 votes below the 270 needed.

“Just in case you were wondering, RCP has thrown PA into the undecided column today so as of tonight Joe Biden has 259 EVs,” the Nov. 9 tweet reads. “Or as some would like to say, NOT President Elect.” (RELATED: Does This Video Show Paris Church Bells Ringing To Celebrate Joe Biden’s Election?)

But RCP never showed a winner for Pennsylvania. Check Your Fact searched the Wayback Machine, an internet archive, between Nov. 3 and Nov. 10, but found no instances of RCP listing Biden as Pennsylvania’s winner. RCP’s electoral map showed Pennsylvania as undecided and Biden as having 259 votes on Nov. 7, the day Biden was announced as the president-elect. As of press time, RCP’s map shows the same results.

Several individuals, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, tweeted the false claim that Biden was no longer the president-elect. Spicer later tweeted a correction.

RCP’s co-founder and president, Tom Bevan, responded to these claims in a Nov. 10 tweet.

“This is false,” Bevan tweeted. “We never called Pennsylvania, and nothing has changed.” Senior elections analyst for RCP, Sean Trende, likewise said that the claim was “untrue” on Twitter.

While The Associated Press and cable news networks have projected Biden as the winner, RCP has not called the 2020 presidential race for either candidate at the time of publication. RCP lists Biden as having 259 electoral votes and President Donald Trump as having 214 on its interactive map as of press time.

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more.

Elias Atienza

Senior Reporter
Follow Elias on Twitter Have a fact check suggestion? Send ideas to [email protected].

Trending