re: #305 Eclectic Cyborg
That was the result of a newspaper making a particularly early call based on their assumptions of how the rest of the night would go.
More-or-less correct: however, I believe the actual circumstances were more that it wasn’t an “early” call, but a very late one: I think it was that the pressmen at the Chicago Tribune (famously owned by a rabid Republican wingnut) had had two front pages set up to run depending on the results, and since late returns from the West hadn’t been certified by their “drop-dead” press time, they went with the one that seemed likeliest (and they knew would please their boss). The rest, as they say, is history….