National Political Correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC

Steve Kornacki | Biography 2021

Popular journalist Tom Brokaw called Kornacki "America's gift to election years."

• By Reena Chikanbanjar
• Update : July 22, 2021

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Steve Kornacki is a National Political Correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. He rose to fame after relentlessly covering the 2020 presidential election results.

Who is Steve Kornacki?

Steve Kornacki began his journalism career in his early 20s. He joined PoliticsNJ.com in 2002 and later shifted to Salon in 2010 before joining MSNBC in June 2012. At MSNBC, he co-hosted an ensemble show, The Cycle, and went on to host the shows Up with Steve Kornacki, MTP Daily, and MSNBC Live. In 2017, he was named the National Political Correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. 

Early Life and Education

Steve Kornacki was born on 22 August 1979 in Groton, Massachusetts, US, to Stephan Joseph Kornacki Sr. and Anne Ramonas Kornacki. He has a sister named Kathryn. Kornacki attended Groton-Dunstable Regional High School in Groton, Massachusetts. Later, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from Boston University in 2001. 

Career

After graduating from Boston University, Kornacki tried to make money by participating in game shows. He applied for multiple game shows, including The Weakest Link, Win Ben Stein's Money, and Smush, but failed in his attempts. He then started applying for a full-time reporter job. After dozens of such applications, he was hired as a Reporter by a New Jersey-based political news site called PoliticsNJ.com in August 2002. Kornacki then went on to work at Roll Call and New York Observer before getting hired by David Talbot's political website Salon in February 2010. He soon made his way to Politics Editor. However, Kornacki quit after he felt he was not paid as much as he deserves. He then joined MSNBC in June 2012 and started co-hosting an ensemble afternoon news and political talk show The Cycle, with conservative commentator S.E. Cupp, journalist Touré Neblett, and progressive political commentator Krystal Ball. 

Kornacki progressed at MSNBC and made his way to host the prime-time talk show Up with Steve Kornacki. He hosted the show from April 2013 to September 2014. On 25 September 2015, Kornacki appeared as a guest on MSNBC Live and hosted the show on 14 April 2016. He would later serve MSNBC Live as a correspondent in the subsequent years. He also served as the Monday anchor of the MSNBC talk show called MTP (Meet The Press) Daily from 2017 to 2018. In addition, he had frequently appeared and hosted the CNBC talk show Hardball with Chris Matthews from 2012 to 2019. He had also appeared on television shows such as Weekend Today, Morning Joe, Deadline: White House, and Today. 

On 8 May 2017, Kornacki was named the National Political Correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. 

Election Week

Kornacki came to prominence during the 2020 presidential election when he tirelessly updated and interpreted viewers about the post-election vote counts. During that time, he continuously identified key counties in states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and explained that the early vote counts might be misleading. 

He went live for hours, stayed up for two nights in a row, and was powered mostly by Diet Coke. He only slept for a few hours in nearly a week-long presidential vote counting. Celebrities like Leslie Jones and Chrissy Teigen became obsessed with Kornacki's tireless election coverage that they turned him into a social media sensation. Kornacki went viral on Twitter with hashtags such as #chartthrob and #TrackingKornacki and soon earned a legion of fans.

Awards and Recognitions

Kornacki was one of the television hosts who was named "Chartthrob" for consistently updating the results of the US Election 2020. That year, People magazine also named him as one of the ‘2020 Sexiest Man Alive.' 

Additional Works

A week after the 2020 presidential election, Kornacki was offered to appear on NBC's football telecast. He accepted the offer. In December 2020, Kornacki appeared on NBC's Football Night in America pregame show, analyzing the National Football League (NFL) playoff probabilities. Deadline reported in May 2013 that Kornacki would develop a game show for NBCUniversal's streaming group, and he will join NBC Sports with plans to appear during Olympics converge and Super Bowl LVI.

Book

Kornacki had authored a book titled 'The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism,' discussing the history of political polarization in American politics. The book was published on 2 October 2018. After the publication of the book, famous journalist Tom Brokaw called Kornacki "America's gift to election years."

Personal Life

At 32, Kornacki came out as gay to the public on 16 November 2011 through a lengthy personal column titled 'The coming out story I never thought I'd write' published in Salon. However, unlike other gays, he did not identify his sexuality at a young age. 

"I've read stories from people who say they always knew they were attracted to the same sex, or that they figured it out at a young age. I'm not one of them," he wrote in his coming-out story. 

He shared that he hadn't learned about his sexuality until his sophomore year. However, he went on to deny his sexuality for years until he lost his chance to be with a man who made him feel proud about his sexuality. As reported in Out, Kornacki used a copy of his article to come out to his parents before it was published.