Despite his campaign's blunders, Ford managed to close the remaining gap in the polls and by election day, the race was judged to be even. It took most of that night and the following morning to determine the winner. It was not until 3:30 am (EST), that the NBC television network was able to declare that Carter had carried Mississippi and had thus accumulated more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win (seconds later, ABC News also declared Carter the winner based on projections for Carter in Wisconsin and Hawaii while CBS News announced Carter's victory at 3:45 am). Carter defeated Ford by two percentage points in the national popular vote.