When it comes to elections, Chris Jansing has seen it all — and that’s why the veteran MSNBC host can’t wait for Tuesday when she’ll be covering her 12th Election Day.
Jansing, as usual, will be hosting “Chris Jansing Reports” at 1:00 p.m. ET on MSNBC, as well as helping out with the network’s 24-hour coverage of Donald Trump v. Kamala Harris. But she said the network has “never prepared like this” for an Election Day that could stretch into Election Week.
The host recently spoke with TheWrap about a number of topics, including how President Joe Biden’s exit from the race compares to previous election surprises, the issues that remain important each cycle and why the American public is losing trust in the mainstream media.
The following interview was lightly edited for clarity.
TheWrap: Can I have you take me back to the first election you covered, and compare it with the 2024 election?
Jansing: That was 1980, Reagan-Carter. It was also my first convention — I was working as a journalist at a local radio station in Albany, New York. I had no idea what it meant to cover a presidential campaign. And proof of that was, I just showed up at the convention center in New York and said, “I’m here to cover the convention” – as if people did not apply for credentials in advance. And somehow I talked my way into the Democratic National Convention.
And the energy, the idea that I would have access to so many people who I had only read about or seen on TV supercharged my career in a way that I could not have imagined. You could never do that now. A local radio reporter from Albany, New York, could not walk into a national convention and talk his or her way into being able to get even a temporary floor pass.
But for me, it was a revelation. And it started for me, knowing that there was nothing else I wanted to do or was meant to do and I’ve more or less covered every campaign since, to greater and lesser extent, depending on what the cycle was, but I’ve been to most of the conventions since then. I’ve been to most of the inaugurations since then, and pretty much all 50 states in between.
You put a few things out there that I wanted to ask you about. First, you said you could never do that now – so I want to ask, is covering the election better or worse than when you started out, and why?
I think it’s always amazing as it’s unfolding. The difference is, of course, the level of security, the level of access, the idea of just walking up to potentially, if not a candidate, one of their top aides, and being able to talk to them, that really is impossible to imagine right now.
But in terms of actually being a part of the process — watching how it works, talking to voters, talking to candidates, talking to political operatives — that part of it, pulling the curtain back and being able to be behind the scenes and doing what I think is still one of the most extraordinary events of any lifetime, and that is watching democracy work, seeing how an election works, and being part of a process that results in a decision that affects every single person in this country in one way or another.
Where does Biden dropping out this year compare to past election surprises?
In 2000, I was in Tallahassee for 36 days after the election, an election that would ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. And a group of journalists had a discussion about how we would probably never cover a story this big in our lifetime, certainly not an election story this big.
And then in 2008, the first Black president was elected. And then in 2024, in July, Joe Biden drops out, something we’ve never seen before. And who becomes the Democratic nominee? The first Black and South Asian woman to ever run for president as a nominee. So it’s been an incredible career of covering these things. But what’s happened this year? No one has ever seen anything like what has happened in 2024, that much we can say.
What about how you approach election night? What goes into it?
Preparation, preparation and more preparation. What’s that old saying about Carnegie Hall? How do you get there? Practice, practice, practice.
So look, experience helps; understanding how the process works helps a lot. Being surrounded, as I am at MSNBC, with people who are as good as they are. Throughout this process, I’ll be sitting next to Andrea Mitchell and Katy Tur, two people who I trust implicitly, not just as great journalists, but as great colleagues. And we’ve developed a rhythm and a respect and an understanding of how we all approach this the exact same way. We approach this with the humility to know that people have a lot of choices for where they can get their information, where they can get their news. They choose to come to MSNBC.
I always go back to the founding fathers, the fact that freedom of the press was put in the First Amendment. That Thomas Jefferson said, “If it were left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.” I take that role seriously. My colleagues take that role seriously. My bosses, thank them, have surrounded us with experts who understand this process and the stakes very deeply. And I think our viewers, I certainly hope our viewers see that, and that’s why they come to us.
Gallup released polling last week that Americans’ trust in mainstream media is at an all-time low. I’d love to get your thoughts on that – do you think that’s something that can be remedied?
Let me go back to something I just said – hundreds of thousands of people watch “Chris Jansing Reports” [and] I’m humbled by it. Millions of people watch MSNBC in a very broad media world. I understand the frustration. We live in an unprecedented media environment. There are bad actors spewing misinformation. We know this, it’s been documented.
But I can only speak for me and for MSNBC. I also know that we have built a relationship with our viewers. I know that they make a choice to come to us. I know that every day, frankly, they are judging us the way they should. Are we fair? Are we accurate? Are we giving them the truth, day after day after day? That brings me back to the Thomas Jefferson quote — that’s our charge. And so I can’t speak for the rest of the mainstream media. I will say this — every day, when I get up at 4:45, I cannot wait to get started on my day. I cannot wait to see what has happened while I was sleeping, I cannot wait to get into the office and really think and meet and talk to my colleagues here at MSNBC.
How do we do this so that people continue to trust us and continue to say, ‘I know if I turn on MSNBC, what I’m going to get, and what I’m going to get is what I need to make a decision.’ I’m not telling anybody how to vote. I’m not telling everybody what to think. I want to give them the information that they can use to make those decisions for themselves. I can’t speak to the rest of the media.
What are some of the timeless elections issues – things that people cared about during the 1980 election that they still care about in 2024? Are there common threads?
To quote James Carville, as I do often, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
It’s always what is happening in people’s individual lives, and I’ve traveled to all 50 states, the majority of those on the campaign trail. I can remember going into a mobile home park in the delta of Arkansas. I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I got were really thoughtful questions, really probing questions about where the candidates stood and what the election might mean for them. I don’t think that that’s a selfish thing. I think it’s a natural human thing. “What is this going to mean for me? What’s this going to mean for my everyday life? What does it mean for my kid, who has a bunch of college debt? Their ability to pay off their college loans, to buy a house, to go on vacation, to earn enough money so that they can make their kids life my grandkids lives better?”
That basic human desire for the American dream, if you want to boil it down, has always been the same. And all these years that I’ve worked for MSNBC, and the tens of thousands of miles that I have traveled, including abroad and spoken to American voters who are living abroad, those central tenets remain the same — and I think more so now, but that has always been the case.
People want to feel comfortable in their lives. They don’t want to feel stressed out. 2020 was bad, right? COVID was game-changing for the psyche of the American people. People want to feel comfortable in their country. They want to feel comfortable in their homes. They want to feel confident in their futures, their family’s futures. So in that sense, 1980 is no different than 2024. The candidates have changed, the circumstances surrounding it have changed, but the basic ideals of a democracy, of a country that functions and a place where you live with the prospect of a brighter future for yourself, your kids and your grandkids, that is absolutely consistent.
If Donald Trump is re-elected, do you expect his relationship with the media to be any different than it was during his first term?
I don’t want to presuppose anything about the election. Let me say that first, because you can’t really read any results into early voting and the polls, frankly. Ask Steve Kornacki, don’t quote me on this, but I don’t remember a time when we’ve had month after month of polls that show everything within the margin of error. Polls came out today with all seven battleground states within the margin of error.
I find it fascinating as a journalist to get down to what voters are thinking. I can never talk to enough voters. I’ve talked to thousands and thousands of them over the years. As for the relationship that we have with Trump, Kamala Harris or any other candidate, our job, again, hasn’t changed. My job is to ask the tough questions. My job is to ask the question that I think my viewers and the American people want answers to. How any candidate responds to it on any given day, I can’t control. What I can control and what I take as a sacred trust [is] asking those hard questions, trying to get those direct answers. That’s all I can look forward to, whatever the outcome of this election.
I know you just said you don’t make predictions, but I have to ask – what’s one prediction for Election Night?
If I were someone who was a betting woman – I’m not – I would say that at least we as an organization, MSNBC, are preparing really hard and really deep, because we view this more like Election Week than Election Day. We have never prepared like this.
And trust me, we prepare long and hard and exhaustively. We are going to make sure we are swift, we are accurate with our projections. We’re going to have people fanned out all across the country. But remember, the central race is the race for president, and that’s the one everyone’s watching. But we have both control of the House and Senate up for grabs, and there may be in some states a decision on one race and not a decision on another. I’m approaching this election as someone who spent Thanksgiving in a hotel ballroom in 2000, 36 days in Tallahassee, when we had no idea it was going to go through Christmas.
I’m not making any predictions. I would just say I’m ready for whatever comes, and we will approach it the same way that we always have, with our commitment to the truth, our commitment to accuracy, a commitment to our viewers – and my personal commitment to at least try to get four hours’ sleep a night.
