Steve Kornacki’s thorough, rapid-fire analysis of election results has made him one of NBC’s most unexpectedly popular on-air figures, so it was only fitting that he ended up being part of “Saturday Night Live” just hours after calling the Democrats’ victory in the midterm race for control of the U.S. Senate.
At around 9:30 p.m. ET on Saturday night, NBC News called the Nevada Senate race for Democrat incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto, giving the Dems their 50th seat in the Senate. While the Georgia Senate race between incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will head to a December runoff, the Democrats have enough seats to maintain control of the Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker.
Around that time, Kornacki was live on MSNBC explaining the decision to call the race for Cortez Masto and discussing the ongoing race for the House of Representatives, which the Republicans are currently favored to take control of but with a much smaller margin than expected.
“I think a lot of people thought that the House would be called on election night and the Senate would take a few days, but it has been the exact opposite,” Kornacki remarked.
About two hours later, “Saturday Night Live,” aired a pre-recorded sketch from comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy in which “SNL” newcomer Molly Kearney is accidentally elected attorney general of Ohio. Kornacki is seen in the sketch reading out the drunk tweet that led to this victory and warns that if Kearney’s speech isn’t good enough, she will go straight to jail.
A 10-year veteran at MSNBC, Kornacki became a viral sensation on election night in 2020, covering Joe Biden’s victory while wearing a short-sleeved buttoned shirt and tie with khakis from The Gap. His energy level, fashion sense and ability to break down analytics with the help of his trusty touch screen led NBC to give him a second job on many of its sports broadcasts, regularly appearing on “Football Night in America” and NBC Sports’ coverage of major horse races where he beat the network’s horse experts and successfully picked the winner of the 2021 Kentucky Derby.
Watch Kornacki’s “SNL” cameo in the clip above.