NBC projected that California’s Proposition 50 (congressional redistricting measure) passed with ~74.7% Yes votes
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Executive summary
NBC’s alleged projection that Proposition 50 passed with roughly 74.7% “Yes” votes is not supported by the reporting provided here; multiple authoritative tallies and contemporaneous news accounts put the measure’s final or certified margin in the mid‑60s (about 63.9–64.6% Yes) rather than three‑quarters of the vote [1] [2] [3].
1. What the official tallies and major outlets reported
State certification and newsroom tallies after the November special election show Proposition 50 passing by roughly two‑thirds of the vote, not 74.7%: the Secretary of State–linked reporting and county maps list a certified outcome of about 63.9% Yes to 36.1% No (5,291,908 to 2,989,022) with turnout around 35.9% as of an 8 p.m. snapshot reported by CaliforniaToday and the Secretary of State source [1] [4], while analysis outlets such as PPIC cited a current tally around 64.6% Yes in post‑election takeaways [2], and Wikipedia’s summary similarly recorded about 64.4% in its compiled overview [3].
2. Why raw night‑of projections can differ from certified results
California’s vote counting is front‑loaded with mail ballots and can continue for days after polls close, so early network projections — if one existed claiming ~74.7% — could reflect incomplete returns or selective early tallies rather than the full count; news coverage reminds readers that a large share of ballots arrives by mail and that only a portion are reported immediately on election night [5]. Several outlets described Prop 50 as opening a wide lead on election night and ultimately passing comfortably, but none of the provided sources document an NBC projection at 74.7% [6] [7] [8].
3. Regional voting patterns and why percentages mattered politically
The geographic results undercut a simple narrative of unanimous consensus: Prop 50 won in much of populous California and even carried some counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2024 (Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial and a handful of others), but it lost heavily in some rural northeastern counties where “No” margins exceeded 70–79% in places like Lassen and Modoc [9] [10] [1]. Those county splits, combined with the state’s large Democratic registration advantage, help explain why a two‑thirds statewide margin translated into a politically significant but not near‑three‑quarters landslide [9] [2].
4. Competing narratives, the litigation that followed, and how percentages are used
Proposition 50 was framed by supporters as a partisan countermove to Texas’s redistricting and by opponents as Democratic gerrymandering; the final margin was large enough to certify the map but not so extreme that legal or political opponents couldn’t challenge it — indeed, Republicans filed federal lawsuits alleging racial gerrymandering after the secretary of state certified that “nearly two‑thirds” had voted yes [11]. Media outlets emphasized different takeaways — some highlighting the decisive mandate to redraw maps for partisan gain [8] [6], others noting narrower margins in specific counties — but the factual record in these sources consistently points to mid‑60s support rather than ~74.7% [1] [2].
5. Assessing the original NBC claim against provided reporting
The sources supplied here contain no evidence that NBC projected a 74.7% Yes vote; the contemporaneous tallies and certified counts repeatedly give the Yes total at roughly 63.9–64.6% [1] [2] [3]. Without an NBC item in the provided set, it is impossible to confirm whether NBC ever published a 74.7% projection, whether that figure reflected an early partial sample, or whether it was a misremembered or misreported number; the balanced conclusion from available reporting is that the widely reported and certified margin was about two‑thirds, not three‑quarters [1] [2] [5].