MSNBC's Steve Kornacki Explains his Election Night Routine

Election Night is only days away and the apprehension is building. 

The big question is, how long is it going to take this time? In 2020, a winner was not declared until the Saturday after the election.

Luckily, MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki has swooped in to save the day and repress the widespread angst by explaining his go-to Election Night routine.

The American journalist relayed his secrets to success in an interview with NBC, saying he eats a pizza on the night of. “That’ll slow me down and might even put me to sleep.”

“I subscribe to the, I think it was Red Auerbach who coached the Celtics way back, who wouldn’t eat on a game day because he felt it took away his edge,” said Kornacki. “I kind of take that same approach.”

But it’s not just restricting meals that serves Konacki well during the stressful hours of Election Night. He also likes to get his blood pumping.

“I try and take a few hours in the afternoon and go for a walk, a long walk, knowing that basically as soon as I come back, I get changed and get everything together, go up to the studio,” explained Kornacki. “[I] spend the night in the studio and maybe the week and maybe even a month.”

So if the meticulous journalist doesn’t fuel with food, how does he survive through the madness of Election Night?

“I think I’ve replaced Diet Coke with coffee,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s healthy, I don’t know if one’s better than the other or if they’re both equally terrible, but I’ve started to have coffee, so that is going to replace my Coke.” 

Kornacki has clearly grown immune to the effects of Diet Coke after years of quenching his Election Night thirst with the delectable pop.

The reporter orders his coffee via the Dunkin mobile app and simply goes downstairs to the Rockefeller Plaza Concourse to pick it up whenever he is in need of a caffeine refill.

Does Steve Kornacki sleep on Election Night?

What about the question we’re really all asking? Does Kornacki – and all other political correspondents, for that matter – get sleep during this hectic time?

“I don’t get the quality sleep that the medical professionals recommend,” said Kornacki. “So, it’s never that good to start with.”

Kornacki gets zero Z’s in the newsroom, often forcing himself to stay standing so he doesn’t fall into a deep slumber while taking a beat in a chair.

“In between somebody offered me a chair … I said, ‘No, because if I sit down in the chair, I'll fall asleep instantly.’ So I think the challenge to me was just stay on my feet,” he said.

“I might put my head down on my desk in my office but if I’m in the studio I’m there because I know I’m on the air and I don’t want to be woken up from a nap for that,” Kornacki added.

How does Steve Kornacki prepare for Election Night?

Kornacki definitely has to perform his due diligence pre-Election Night.

“It involves a lot of studying, a lot of looking at spreadsheets, at maps and a lot of anxiety and panic over, you know, whether I'm going to, you know, get through everything that I want to get through in time for the election,” the journalist explained. “Mainly, this is the point of the cycle when I start wishing the election were another month away because I feel like I still need another month of prep for it.”

Kornacki compares the preliminary period before Election Night to college, saying he “just ends up kind of cramming for a final.”

What is the longest Election Night shift Steve Kornacki has ever worked?

The longest duration Kornacki has ever been in the newsroom on Election Night is approximately 20 hours back in 2020.

“One of those nights, we went round the clock the first night, I got to the studio at 6 p.m. We were on the air at 6 p.m. and I think I left the studio at noon the next day. So that's 18 hours,” he said.

“But I think the next one was the Thursday into Friday of that same week, the same thing I think I was in the studio by six ... I think that day I was until two or three in the afternoon, so that was probably even longer. I would estimate 20 hours.”

How long will the 2022 election results take?

Considering the longevity of the 2020 election due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the expanded use of mail-in ballots, Kornacki points out that it all depends on whether states learned from their previous experiences.

“I think the big question is, how long is it going to take this time? Because, you know, we just 2020, we didn't have a winner declared until the Saturday after the election,” said Kornacki.

“Have the states learned from the experience of 2020 in a way that will make them more efficient?” he said. Compared to 2020, “Are we going to see a lot fewer voting by mail and a lot more voting in person that could speed things up?”

“We have the potential for a very close election, a very suspenseful election. But I think that the question is: Will we get a significantly quicker resolution this time than we did in 2020?”