Mediaite Q&A: NBC’s Steve Kornacki On His First Election Night Without MSNBC in More Than a Decade

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It’s going to be a very different election night for NBC News chief data analyst Steve Kornacki.

For the first time since 2014, the NBC News chief data analyst won’t be appearing on MSNBC’s election night coverage. No bouncing back-and-forth between NBC and MSNBC this year for Kornacki — although the notoriously energetic election guru is sure to be bouncing around just the same. (He’s previously said that he’s fueled by Nutter Butters and Diet Cokes during election season.) This year and for the foreseeable future, Kornacki will appear only on NBC News platforms — as part of the deal in which MSNBC (soon to be MSNOW) has been spun off as part of a separate corporate entity.

But despite his absence from MSNBC, and the fact that there are no Senate or House races to decide, it still figures to be a very busy night for the man who has made election night coverage his calling card. Kornacki will hold down the fort at the big board starting at 7 p.m. ET on NBC News Now and appearing throughout the night on various NBC News platforms.

And while it might seem like this won’t be the most eventful election, there are still plenty of races that Kornacki will be keeping his eye on. Mediaite caught up with Kornacki Monday morning for a brief chat in which the election maven gave us a quick preview of the big night.

This interview has been lightly edited for style and clarity.

Mediaite: NBC News released a new poll on Sunday. The poll gave Democrats an 8-point lead (50-42) on the generic Congressional ballot, despite the poll also finding that only 28 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the Democratic Party right now. How do those two findings strike you — in concert?

Steve Kornacki: We’ve been seeing very low numbers for the Democratic Party’s image this past year, so that’s not new. And it’s one of the reasons Republicans hope the ’26 midterm will be different from the midterm in Trump’s first term, when the GOP lost control of the House. But it’s worth keeping in mind that a lot of it has to do with Democrats themselves. In our poll, only 59 percent of Democrats have a favorable view of their own party. By contrast, 78 percent of Republicans view the GOP favorably. And the frustration of those Democrats stems from their deep hostility to Trump — they don’t think their party is going after him aggressively enough. So it wouldn’t be surprising if these voters — liberal politically, highly engaged, deeply anti-Trump — would still vote for Democratic candidates despite their general displeasure with the party. Also worth considering: This poll was conducted during the government shutdown and our pollsters caution that in past shutdowns, the GOP’s generic ballot standing has taken a temporary hit.

President Trump’s approval sits at 43 percent — which is squarely in the range where it always lands. But were there any warning signs for him in Sunday’s poll?

It’s not new for him, although it is down four points from our last NBC poll, which was taken in the spring, and it’s now right at the level he was at in 2018, the blue wave midterm of his first term. This is another reason the generic ballot gap has to be worrying for the GOP — an approval rating in the low 40s for a president has often correlated with a tough midterm environment. We also continue to see what is the new pattern of his second term, with Trump getting low marks on the economy and inflation and higher marks for immigration and the border.

Which finding in Sunday’s poll do you think should be getting more attention?

We asked about attitudes toward socialism and capitalism and the numbers among Democrats were notable. Overall, socialism is viewed favorably by just 18 percent of voters, but among Democrats it’s 35 percent. Maybe more strikingly, only 20% of Democrats say they have a negative view of it. There could be fertile ground inside the party for leaders and voices who want to push it further to the left, and a question of whether that would move Democrats farther from swing voters and exacerbate the image problem they already have.

Let’s turn to Tuesday’s elections: It’s an off-year vote, but there’s obviously still plenty to watch — big governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, not to mention Proposition 50 in California. It seems safe to say Democrats need to win all three of those races to feel good about the evening. But is winning enough? Or do they need Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherill to run up the score a little in order to feel good about the party’s prospects for the midterms?

There are exceptions, but historically, the opposition party has won in Virginia and New Jersey. Add to that the numbers in our poll and it will be a huge blow to Democrats if they don’t sweep those two. And given the polling in Virginia, yes, the expectations there are for a comfortable Spanberger win; if it’s even close, Republicans will try to claim a moral victory there. New Jersey, to me, is the test. The race is much more competitive and the Republican, Jack Ciattarelli, nearly won four years ago. And Democrats aren’t thrilled with how Mikie Sherrill has performed as a candidate. The voters who will decide the election are cross-pressured. They tend to be anti-Trump suburbanites who also aren’t nuts about the Democrats who run Trenton. In 2021, Ciattarelli did well with these voters, nearly well enough to win. But last year, they swung back hard against Trump and sided with Kamala Harris. Democrats have run a campaign built around connecting Trump to Ciattarelli, with an eye to retaining these voters. If Ciattarelli can win them back in this climate — with Trump back in the White House (remember, he was an ex-president in ’21) — it would be a major development.

Give us an obscure down-ballot race somewhere that we should be watching closely.

Pennsylvania is holding a judicial retention election, basically a yes/no referendum on three Democrats who now sit on the state Supreme Court. “No” almost never wins these, but because Pennsylvania is a key swing state and Republicans have been steadily gaining there in voter registration, I’m curious to see the results.

And finally, for you personally — watching you on election night has become something of a sport for many observers on social media. In the past, you have been omnipresent on both NBC and MSNBC. But this is going to be your first election where you will appear strictly on NBC News platforms. How will your election night change? Will Leslie Jones still get enough Steve Kornacki on her screen (or screens) to keep her happy?

We’re going big right away, and we’ll be live on NBC News NOW at 7:00 p.m., when the first results from Virginia start pouring in, and going late. It’s our free streaming platform — easy to find and watch. And I’ll be at the board going through counties — and this year, excitingly, municipalities too. (I always tell my bosses I’m ready to go round the clock until we get calls in every race!) We’ve got a great team who will be part of it. So many more people are interested in politics and elections now than earlier in my career, and it’s exciting that we’re going to be providing coverage that meets that interest for this election. We’ll also have a live YouTube stream of NBC’s podcast Here’s the Scoop that I’ll be at the board for, sometime after 11 p.m. Tune in and join us — it’ll be great fun!

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Joe DePaolo is the Executive Editor of Mediaite.