Democrats did much better than expected
If you like I, Steve Kornacki will be admired as much as your aunt in your group chats. He’s become a staple of Election Day coverage, spending long hours at the big board and doing a lot of prep beforehand.
His thorough knowledge of key constituencies and voter turnout trends made him not only indispensable to many Americans on election night, but also a full-fledged celebrity. I spoke with him early this morning to discuss the results of Tuesday night’s election.
We look at what it means to return to the 2026 midterm elections, where Democrats currently lead Republicans by 8 percentage points in the latest NBC News poll, and what they say about President Donald Trump’s agenda for a second term. We also talked about what surprised him in the New Jersey gubernatorial election, the weakening of Trump’s base and, of course, the historic victory of Zahran Mamdani, the elected mayor of New York. Kornacki is taking on an expanded role at NBC News following parent Comcast’s decision to spin off its cable TV properties, including the soon-to-be-renamed MSNBC.
Kornacki isn’t one to put much stock in this off-year election, but the breadth and depth of the Democratic victories show a political landscape that has changed dramatically in the year since Trump’s election — and if anyone can find important details to follow going forward, it’s Steve.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Wired: Steve, thanks for joining us after a long night. Before we get into the meat and potatoes here, let’s start with a quick lightning round: how many hours did you sleep, how many hours did you sleep, and can you tell us if you have any election night superstitions?
Steve Kornacki: Well, I’m shooting for zero so I’m not disappointed and so I’m surprised at whatever I get, which I think was about half past two last night.
We go there.
So it’s not too bad. Superstitions? I don’t know about that. My challenge is to just adjust all the anecdotal election day turnout data. I just think it’s a ton of noise that starts to mess with your head.
What surprised you about last night?
What surprised me—probably not the most original observation this morning—was New Jersey. [Representative Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee, won with more than 56 percent of the vote.] The margin there for Cheryl, which is about 13 points, is much larger than expected. I mean, I was talking to Democrats right on Election Day who were telling me some version of, “He’s running a terrible campaign, he’s not been a good candidate. He might still win because of Trump, but it’s closer than it should be.” I mean, it was a bipartisan view that Sherrill had run a bad campaign and was even in danger of losing, and that wasn’t the case at all.
