The Kornacki Calculus

Steve Kornacki is about to embark on another election night marathon.

As America heads to the polls Tuesday, the NBC News data guru will once again take his place at the network’s famed Big Board, crunching numbers and dissecting county-by-county results as the balance of power in Washington hangs in the balance. Kornacki will be doing more than just appearing on linear television. He’ll also be streaming for hours on the “Kornacki Cam,” offering political junkies an even deeper dive into the data.

Ahead of the high-stakes midterms, I caught up with Kornacki to discuss how he’s preparing for the long night, the challenges of delivering election results in a polarized media environment, and whether prediction markets actually offer viewers anything of value. Kornacki also weighed in on the possibility of another polling miss, Donald Trump’s potential reaction to NBC’s coverage, and how he navigates the increasingly fraught information landscape.

Below is our Q&A, which we conducted via email.