Whomever your go-to election coverage outlet may be, even outlets considered to be left leaning, there may be a good chance they are rooting for Donald Trump, to an extent. If you play around with any interactive electoral college map (such as http://www.270towin.com) combined with state polling averages (http://www.270towin.com/2016-polls-clinton-trump/), you will quickly see Mr. Trump has a very narrow path to victory. In fact, if you give the win to Trump in all so called “Battleground States” west of Ohio, you will find that Mr. Trump cannot win the election without winning Florida and at least two out of three states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
The significance of this is that all 4 of those critical Battleground states are in the Eastern time zone. Winners are typically called in those states between around 8PM and 11PM Eastern time on average. There is of course always the potential for significant exceptions such as Florida in 2000, or Pennsylvania in 2008 (called before 8PM.) But with such a narrow path, it is very possible that analysts, pundits, and statisticians could deem the election effectively over before some West Coast voters have even left the polls! All it would take is for a Hillary Clintn win to be called either in Florida, or in two of the three other Battleground states in the Eastern time zone that I've mentioned.
The best case scenario for the network ratings would be that Trump sweeps all Battleground states in the Eastern timezone and assuming Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin go to Clinton, then the outcome may not be determined until states like Nevada and Arizona out West have been called. This scenario would be going against the current poll results though, which if they are *mostly* correct will have this contest over out East as early as 8PM Eastern, 5PM Pacific, which would not be good for network ratings.
The best case scenario for the network ratings would be that Trump sweeps all Battleground states in the Eastern timezone and assuming Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin go to Clinton, then the outcome may not be determined until states like Nevada and Arizona out West have been called. This scenario would be going against the current poll results though, which if they are *mostly* correct will have this contest over out East as early as 8PM Eastern, 5PM Pacific, which would not be good for network ratings.
