Steve Kornacki: Education, Career, and Rise to Political Commentary Fame

Steve Kornacki is an American political journalist, writer, and television presenter. He is a national political correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. He has written articles for Salon, The New York Observer, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, The Boston Globe, and The Daily Beast.

Early Life and Education

Stephan Joseph Kornacki Jr. was born on August 22, 1979, in Groton, Massachusetts, to Stephan Joseph Kornacki Sr., an executive search consultant, and Anne Bernadette (née Ramonas) Kornacki, a social worker and homemaker. He has one sister, Katherine Kornacki, who is 18 months older than him. Kornacki's childhood was dominated by Boston sports and a passion for politics. He dreamed of being like sportscaster Brent Musburger, and at age 12, he was heartbroken when Bill Clinton defeated Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas to win the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination.

Kornacki attended Groton-Dunstable Regional High School and later enrolled at Boston University. Initially majoring in journalism, he later switched to film and television. He finished his coursework and graduated but never received his BU diploma because of unpaid dining fees of $25. “I’m still holding a grudge,” he says with a laugh.

Bruce Schulman, BU’s William E. Huntington Professor of History, taught The Red and the Blue last year in his Media and Politics in Modern America class. He discussed with his students how the country’s politics have shifted over the years. Whereas politicians used to communicate with voters through their local party organizations, now voters look elsewhere (i.e., the news) to learn about a candidate. “What are the implications of that shift? That’s what The Red and the Blue is really about,” says Schulman, who taught Kornacki as an undergrad and invited him back to speak to the class.

Early Career

After graduation, unsure of what he wanted to do for work, Kornacki hopped in a car with friends who were on their way to Los Angeles to find work. He planned to use his love of numbers to win big on a game show. “It was much harder than I thought it would be,” he says, although he had some tryouts, on shows like Win Ben Stein’s Money and The Weakest Link. Needing money, Kornacki came back to the East Coast and took a reporting job at PoliticsNJ.com. He covered New Jersey politics for several years before moving on to a series of reporting positions at various publications, including Roll Call, The New York Observer, and Salon, where he served as politics editor.

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Rise to Prominence at MSNBC

As his profile as a political reporter grew, he found himself being asked to appear as a “talking head” on cable news networks, including MSNBC. His vast knowledge of political history, his ability to offer big-picture analysis rooted in the minutiae of the political leanings of congressional districts, and his Energizer Bunny-like enthusiasm for his subject matter soon led to regular appearances on The Rachel Maddow Show and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell. By 2011, he was a regular on The Rachel Maddow Show and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.

Those guest appearances paid off in 2012 when he became a cohost of the MSNBC panel show The Cycle with political strategist Krystal Ball, pop-culture commentator Touré Neblett, and conservative columnist S.E. Cupp. From 2012 to 2013, Kornacki co-hosted The Cycle on MSNBC. The following year, he led Up with Steve Kornacki, the network’s morning news show. In 2014 he became MSNBC’s election coverage map correspondent, a role that has become a staple of network election night coverage. CNN has John King in this role, and Fox’s Bill Hemmer has the eponymous “Bill Board,” an interactive screen that features up-to-the-minute returns.

In 2014, he used his New Jersey political contacts to help expose the story of Chris Christie, then the state’s governor, directing the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge in order to create traffic jams on the New Jersey side. You may know it as Bridgegate. On MSNBC, Kornacki interviewed the mayor of Hoboken, Dawn Zimmer, who alleged that Christie was refusing millions of dollars of aid to her city after Superstorm Sandy unless she pushed for approval-and delivered tax breaks-on a project belonging to a wealthy real estate developer.

The "Big Board" and Election Night Fame

Kornacki first emerged as a network star during the 2016 presidential election. Since then, he has earned a following for the way he makes the nitty-gritty details of the electoral process fun to watch. When voting results begin rolling in, that energy and passion that Bee poked fun at are evident. He also provides viewers with historical insights by comparing what’s happening today to similar events in previous elections. Kornacki sees lessons in history that can help us understand the present and also the possibilities for the future.

He is perhaps most in his element when he controls MSNBC’s “big board,” a touch-screen, interactive map of the United States. With a swipe of his finger, he can call up stats on candidates, census data, previous races, and incoming election results. Numbers have always helped Kornacki make sense of things. Kornacki also shared insight into how polls have changed since entering the field and what makes a trustworthy poll, “The one-word answer to the last part of that [question]is transparency. There’s one thing that’s changed with polling in the time I’ve been covering it-there’s a lot more of it now and a lot of it is coming from sources that are kind of new to the game … some of them have unclear methodologies.

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Kornacki’s near around-the-clock on-screen presence during the 2020 election cycle elevated his status to social media phenomenon, winning the admiration of influencers, including model Chrissy Teigen. Often shuffling printouts on camera and even pulling out a calculator on live television to determine the number of votes left to be counted as he exuberantly circled key counties on maps, Kornacki seemed to be an MSNBC fixture at any time of the day or night between Election Day on Tuesday, November 4, and Joe Biden being declared president-elect on Saturday, November 8.

During this time, the trusted journalist provided updates and data analysis as the numbers rolled in, which eased some voters' election anxiety. Throughout the election, it seemed as though Kornacki never left the screen, leaving social media users and celebrities praising him for his dedication. Especially, comedian and former "SNL" cast member Leslie Jones, who posted her reaction to Kornacki pulling out a calculator during the 2020 election.

Samantha Bee poked fun at Steve Kornacki’s onscreen antics in a segment for Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. “Guys, Steve Kornacki is breaking before our eyes,” Bee said, after running a highlight reel of the NBC News and MSNBC political correspondent furiously reeling off results and trying to sort out statistical discrepancies with his off-air producers, all the while staying good-natured, if at times out of breath. Her audience roared. Steve Kornacki, national treasure? That’s what Chuck Todd of Meet the Press had to say. Betsy Korona, MSNBC and NBC News Now executive director of news, says it’s impressive to watch Kornacki’s brain work. “His energy is infectious, and his passion for politics and his enthusiasm and his depth of knowledge and ability to take moments in time and draw parallels is unmatched,” she says.

Beyond Politics: Sports and More

Kornacki’s appeal seems to transcend politics. The sports-loving Kornacki has done analyses of the NFL playoffs, the Kentucky Derby, and the Olympic Games for NBC. He made a cameo appearance on Saturday Night Live after the 2022 midterm elections.

Kornacki, 45, is leaving MSNBC - which is spinning off from NBC into its own, yet-unnamed newsgathering operation - and expanding his role with NBC under terms of a new contract. That will include a greater presence with NBC Sports, where he will have the title of chief data analyst and contribute to coverage of premier events, including the NFL, Olympics, and Kentucky Derby. Kornacki, a lifelong Boston sports fan, has contributed to NBC Sports’ coverage in the past. In 2021, he was the only personality on the network’s Kentucky Derby coverage to predict 12-1 shot Medina Spirit’s victory. (The victory was later awarded to Mandaloun after a positive drug test by Medina Spirit, a Bob Baffert-trained horse.)

Author and Analyst

He is also the author of The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism. Kornacki’s interest in political history inspired his 2018 book The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism, which draws parallels between the elections of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. “Thanks to Kornacki’s rich retelling of these events, we can see how today’s reshuffled political parties represent coalitions that began to form in reaction to the compromises their respective leaders forged in the 1990s,” said the Washington Post review. “Donald Trump’s GOP still feeds off the anger Gingrich first aroused against 1990’s broken ‘no new taxes’ promise. For their part, the Democrats increasingly lean left….

Kornacki actually traces this political tribalism back even earlier than the 1990s, attributing it to the way the media expanded and gradually became niche-based after World War II. “No matter where you are in the country right now, everybody can take out their phone and follow along with what the president tweeted or whatever the latest headline is that everyone in Washington is talking about,” he says. “The way our media has evolved, they can find their side’s interpretation of it right away.

His 2025 contract with NBC commits him to doing political and sports analysis for the network but allows him to pursue other ventures elsewhere. He has expressed interest in being a game show host.

Personal Life and Coming Out

In 2011 he wrote a deeply personal essay for Salon revealing that he is gay and exploring the struggle he had with his identity. He decided to write the essay because he had decided, he said, that “if I couldn’t stand up to the fear that had gripped me since high school, regret would become my permanent condition.” Kornacki had guarded his secret so closely that even his parents did not know until he showed them the essay shortly before it was published. Their response-“We’re proud of you”-lifted a burden Kornacki had been carrying for much of his life.

“Most people used to be exposed to only a select cross-section of gay people,” Kornacki told Out magazine in 2014. “But the atmosphere has changed so much, and so quickly.” Steve Kornacki (November 16, 2011). "The Coming Out Story I Never Thought I'd Write".

Kornacki's Style and Impact

Standing 6-foot-1, with glasses and his signature rolled-up Oxford shirtsleeves, Kornacki grows increasingly animated as a broadcast rolls on. Kornacki is tongue in cheek about the secrets to his stamina and success. “I’ll drink a ton of Diet Coke,” he told GQ magazine in advance of the 2020 marathon. “Once we start getting election results, I feed off the energy.…It’s kind of perpetual motion there. So that keeps me alert and I get energized by that. And, before the election, I guess some combination of anticipation and terror, fear of failure.”

Tracy Grant For Steve Kornacki, all politics is local. From major cities to rural towns and every county in between, the MSNBC/NBC News political analyst is a familiar figure on election nights in his trademark khakis and rolled up sleeves, standing before an interactive map of the United States, called the “big board.” His ability to break down complex voter data to the local level in national elections has made him a trusted source on Election Day coverage across America.

Throughout the discussion, he emphasized the importance of translating numbers and statistics into a narrative that is understood by the public. He described his role as not just analyzing data but helping audiences make sense of how trends, polling data and historical voting patterns influence election outcomes. This skill has made him a go-to source during critical moments in American elections.

According to Kornacki, the election night literacy of his audience has grown by “leaps and bounds.” With digital tools such as his now famous big board interactive map of the United States, Kornacki is able to share his knowledge visually and explain the subtleties behind voter results in every state and county in the United States.

As the event wrapped up, Kornacki stressed his commitment to remaining neutral in his reporting on election night. He spoke about the responsibility he feels to share information in a way that respects the viewpoint of all sides, both Republicans and Democrats and everyone in between. “The only thing I can control is what I do on the air. There is still an island that exists in our political world and in our media world, where red and blue can coexist,” said Kornacki. “And that’s the island that’s trying to figure out who is winning the election and why. Each side is self-interested… but they have the same questions.

Current Role and Future

Kornacki is a national political correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, reporting on the latest political developments across all platforms. Kornacki now serves as the National Political Correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC.

The 2024 presidential election is here, which means it's Steve Kornacki's time to shine. As Americans around the country await the election results for what's projected to be a tight race between the Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump, the internet's favorite political correspondent has returned to screens to analyze the polls.

Among those reporting live on the election and analyzing results in real-time is Steve Kornacki, who will be leading election coverage via his "Kornacki cam" on NBC News and MSNBC.

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