Steve Kornacki spent June 10 on a subscriber livestream, fielding questions about the elections, the midterms and whatever else viewers wanted to press him on before polls closed in four states. The NBC News chief data correspondent has been going live on streaming platforms since December, but this session was aimed squarely at primary day and the people trying to make sense of it in real time.
The stream was available on demand for subscribers, and NBC News said its Kornacki Cam had already logged 10 sessions and been sampled by 19 million viewers across platforms. The format puts Kornacki, his Big Board, a producer and a Stedicam operator on screen together, giving viewers the numbers as they move instead of after the fact.
That mattered on a day when Maine held its Democratic Senate nomination primary and three other states also voted. Kornacki said he had seen the same polling everyone else had seen, and it pointed to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass as the candidate best placed to get into the runoff in the Los Angeles mayoral race. He also said reality TV star Spencer Pratt had shown the strongest positive movement over the last month of the campaign.
But he did not sound locked into any one outcome. Asked to read the race, Kornacki said he was open to any and all possibilities, a useful reminder that mayoral contests can turn volatile late. He said the San Fernando Valley would account for more than a third of the vote, probably close to 40%, while Bass would depend on central and South L.A., with probably a third of the vote coming from those two areas. Those would be her bulwarks, he said.
The broader operation has become one of NBC News’ most recognizable election products. The Kornacki Cam, a continuous stream that skips the punditry and centers live results and analysis, has been used since December for special elections and some state Senate contests. The feed is carried on YouTube, NBCNews.com, the NBC News app and the network’s social accounts on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
After the California polls close at 8 p.m. Pacific, NBC News said it planned to turn the Kornacki Cam to the Los Angeles mayoral race, the California races and several congressional districts. The network said its decision desk had already called 70% of the 2026 elections ahead of the, a measure of how much of this operation is built around speed as much as spectacle. For now, the unanswered part is simple: whether the polling read Kornacki described will hold once the votes are counted.
