Twitter hoax declares Warren winner before Mass. race called

Elizabeth Warren ultimately beat out incumbent Sen. Scott Brown (R) in the Massachusetts Senate race, but about 40 minutes before the results were clear on Tuesday night, a Twitter hoax declaring her the winner fooled multiple media outlets.

The false report cited NBC News as making the call in one of the most important Senate races of the cycle. 

The report spread quickly on Twitter through re-tweets by influential users such as Slate’s Dave Weigel and the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein. 

Reuters Politics, Salon, The Daily Beast, BuzzFeed and Mother Jones also tweeted out the news, with Buzzfeed and Mother Jones even posting headlines declaring Warren the winner of the race.

EMILY’s List, the Democratic group working to elect pro-choice women to Congress, congratulated Warren on Twitter. Mashable also notes that Warren’s campaign staff posted a “congratulations” message on her Facebook page.

Congratulations @elizabethforma on becoming the first woman to represent Massachusetts in the Senate! #masen #glassceiling #emilyelection

— EMILY's List (@emilyslist) November 7, 2012

Brian Williams denounced the rumor as false on NBC’s evening broadcast, calling it a “rogue tweet.” And NBC News Communications Director Erika Masonhall rejected the call on Twitter.

Most followed up their tweets with a correction and apology for getting taken in by the hoax.

Twenty minutes later, Masonhall tweeted “now, really: … NBC projects that Warren will win in MA SEN.”

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