Standing in front of a gigantic map isn’t a traditional path to fame. But in 2020, during the presidential face-off between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Steve Kornacki became America’s sweetheart for his enthusiastic delivery of state-by-state election results. The NBC data analyst gracefully guided teeth-grinding, fist-clenching viewers through Biden’s eventual victory, and the rest is history: That same year, Kornacki was named one of People’s sexiest men alive; the internet became obsessed with his khaki pants; and he earned the nicknames “chartthrob” and “map daddy.”
Kornacki further established himself as the king of election season with the “Kornacki Cam” during 2026 midterm primary election nights, when his nonstop behind-the-scenes livestreams amassed 42 million views. Now that midterm election day is upon us, Kornacki is acutely aware of how many viewers have come to rely on him. “I get very anxious about being prepared for election night,” he says, “and then thinking of all the things that I might not be prepared for, and then just taking the phone out and trying to get prepared.”
For someone who spends a lot of time logged on, Kornacki doesn’t exactly have the habits of someone who is chronically online. He seems to know nothing at all about memes, FaceTime really isn’t his thing, and he isn’t quite sure what a subreddit is. Ask him about who’s most likely to win today’s races, though, and he’ll have no shortage of knowledge to share.
Phone model: iPhone 17 Pro
Basically, I break one phone per year, so I recently upgraded to it. They always say the camera's better. It never is any different to me, and the battery's always great for 10 days.
Computer model: a Dell
It's been in its office probably as long as I've been at NBC. It has a thing on it that says Windows 7 Pro, which I think is old. This thing is on its last leg because I've just been too lazy to replace it. I never really got into Macs. I think I had one once, and I just remember not really liking it. I know it's supposed to be user-friendly, but it actually drove me a little crazy.
Average daily screen time: 3 hours, 35 minutes
That is depressing. That's more than 12.5 percent of my life. And then you take out the eight hours of sleep, it's an even bigger piece of the pie. I thought about taking dramatic steps to change it and, like most of my thoughts about dramatic steps to change my life, I never actually do it.
It’s texting, email, definitely there's social media, which is a lot of just trying to make sure I'm not missing something that's happening in my world. This time of year, with the election, I'll have a panicky thought about a particular state that I'm going to cover on election night and some aspect of it, and then I'll think of some blind spot that I have and I'll try to fix it on the spot.
Music app: Spotify
It's fun at the end of the year, they give you your top songs. It says my all-time top song is “My Girl” by the Temptations.
Is Spotify the one that did your listening age or something a couple years ago? Mine was 87 or something.
Number of unread emails: 53,828
When it was at about 5,000 it overwhelmed me, but now it's just part of the furniture.
Number of unread texts: 75
It's amazing what you can get yourself accustomed to, I guess.
I will occasionally—probably once every week or two—sit down with the texts to get it down to zero. That one I can still control, but with email I wouldn't even know where to start. It's almost like a game now to see how high I can get it.
Last person you FaceTimed: Cousin
It’s from over the summer. We were doing a family reunion thing.
But I never really got into that. I like just talking on the phone where you don't have to worry about appearances or anything. You can get up, walk around, whatever. I don't think you need to see each other unless it's some kind of formal meeting. I got so sick of Zoom with Covid, if I can avoid it, I will.
Last thing you Googled: Boothbay Harbor 2024 presidential election results
For part of the election prep, looking at Maine, obviously the Senate race. Results come in by town in Maine, which is not the case in a lot of states where it’s by county. Some of them I need to research on my own, and that's one of them.
Last photo you took: Sergeantsville, New Jersey
I had about two hours on Saturday of actual free time before getting on a train to DC and drove through there.
Last thing you asked AI: “Can you overlay these numbers onto the attached map of Minnesota counties?”
I created benchmarks for the candidates in the Senate race there. This has been new for me this year, and I don't know if I like it. I used to just handwrite them myself on county maps, and now I had AI do it, and I printed the map out, which is much cleaner. It looks much better. Maybe the act of writing them out myself actually maybe helps me internalize it better. I don't know. Maybe this was a bad move.
I have a lot of queasiness and misgivings about AI, but like I said, I have all these files with the maps and these benchmarks on spreadsheets, and I was like, geez, this really would save an hour.
Your top three or most recent most used emojis: N/A
The closest thing I can give you is that I use the thumbs-up thing on text. I really don't use emojis, or, as I mistakenly pronounce them, emoj-eyes. I do think I will use the wink one, because my jokes don't always come through to people.
Favorite social network: X and YouTube
I use Twitter or X or whatever they call it now to keep me aware of things, but I'm not sure it's a healthy thing to use. We've used YouTube for these livestreams that we did in the primary season and built a community on there with the folks who were tuning in and watching these things. It's kind of cool to see that come into being.
Favorite news source: The New York Post
Besides my employer, NBC, I really like the old-school print edition New York Post—picking up a tabloid newspaper. I love newspapers, I always will, and you still get that old-school feeling with it. I've thought about subscribing. I probably should just do that, but I also like the act of going to a newsstand.
Favorite subreddit: N/A
I don't know, I don't know too much. I don't think so. Is that the dark web?
Favorite tech product: Anker charger
I have this super-fast Anker charger. I was at an event once and somebody showed me and gave me the link to order, and it is transformative. I can put it in for 10 minutes and I'm set for a long time.
Favorite meme: N/A
I guess I'm not really a meme person.
Number of burner accounts you have: N/A
If I had burner accounts, I don't think I would tell you.
Technology you’re most nostalgic for: Cable TV
I am kind of nostalgic for the cable TV bundle, which seems to be going away. You really feel it this time of year when trying to watch football games. Now you have to have this streaming product and that streaming product. It used to be you could find a cable package that would give you everything, and you could just flip the channel. It's a lot more complicated now.
Where you fall on the “tech hygiene” spectrum:
Ooh, I don't want to make myself a target with the answer.
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