Fact Check: Kamala Harris Did NOT Fail To Top Biden’s 2020 Election Results In Any US County — CNN Anchor Misspoke

Did Vice President Kamala Harris fail to outperform President Joe Biden’s 2020 election results in any U.S. county in 2024? No, that’s not true: A video on social media has been edited to make it look as if that’s what CNN reported. The full version of CNN’s coverage reveals that anchor Jake Tapper actually asked whether Harris had underperformed Biden in all counties, and a reporter immediately corrected him, saying, “that’s states.” The reporter then confirmed that Harris had done better than Biden in some counties.

The claim appeared in a post and video on X on November 6, 2024 (archived here). The caption read:

Jake Tapper shocked by map that shows that Kamala Harris did not out perform Joe Biden in a single county:
Jake Tapper: ‘Holy smokes! Literally nothing? Literally not one county?’

Trump was the biggest winner tonight. Joe Biden 2nd biggest winner.

The video shows Tapper and reporter John King standing in front of an interactive election map in a CNN studio discussing voting returns on November 6, 2024. King says:

So, you asked — Are there any places that the vice president is overperforming Joe Biden in 2020? So, we can show you that as well, we just bring that out here: Harris overperforming 2020.

King brings up an empty map of the U.S. on the screen, and Tapper retorts:

Holy smokes … Literally nothing? … Literally not one county?

Here’s how the post looked on X at the time of writing:

(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Nov 6 14:17:03 UTC 2024)

The video on X cuts out before King can correct Tapper, making it clear that the empty map showed that Harris in 2024 had failed to top Biden’s 2020 results in any state — not county — by 3 percent or more, according to the vote tallies available at the time.

A longer clip, captured by Mediaite reveals the ful context. In that clip, Tapper asks, at 0:03:

Are there any places where Kamala Harris overperformed from where Biden did?

King finished up a comment he was making about the election in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, then returned to Tapper’s question at the 0:32 mark:

So, you asked — Are there any places that the vice president is overperforming Joe Biden in 2020? So, we can show you that as well, we just bring that out here: Harris overperforming 2020.

King brings up the empty map of the U.S. on the screen, and the interchange continues:

Tapper: Holy smokes … Literally nothing?
King: Literally nothing.
Tapper: Literally not one county?
King: By 3 percent or more… [stumbles] …But that’s states, yeah. But in counties — in 58 counties.

King pulls up another map showing results from U.S. counties and the pair continue their analysis.

The clock on the CNN banner shows that the segment aired at 1:56 to 1:57 a.m. EST on November 6, 2024, hours before some states had tabulated their preliminary election results. All states had not finalized their vote tallies at the time this fact check was written, so it was not possible to comprehensively identify counties where Harris out- or underperformed Biden.

Other Lead Stories fact checks regarding the 2024 election can be found here.