Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley won the Democratic nomination for governor in a stunning upset in the wee hours of the morning Aug. 12.
But the real winner of election night – according to social media, at least – was NBC News Chief Data Analyst Steve Kornacki, whose green scribbles blanketed a county-level map of Wisconsin as he analyzed the state’s results for more than four hours on “Kornacki Cam”.
The highlight of the night came when Kornacki became amusingly bewildered when he learned the crucial absentee tallies from Milwaukee would be delayed due to a downloading error.
When he learned of the irregularities, Kornacki hunched over in distress. Straightening up, his eyes opened wide in shock.
“Well, there’s no traffic at this hour,” Kornacki said, trying to boost the mood after learning it could take at least another hour and a half for election officials to drive back to the Central Count location, redownload the results to USB sticks and return to the county courthouse.
“Are you serious? They have to do … God … What were they doing – OK.” Kornacki said, descending into silence.
They decided to end the livestream shortly after, explaining NBC would be indefinitely waiting for those results. Crowley’s watch party wrapped up around that time, without him taking the stage, for the same reason.
So, how did Kornacki feel in that moment, around 1 a.m. Eastern time?
“It was so deflating,” Kornacki said in a phone interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the morning of Aug. 12.
“We were used to this ritual in Wisconsin, where it comes down to these Central Count ballots from Milwaukee and they have to transport them,” Kornacki said. “We thought we were so far along in that process, and that final piece of the puzzle was about to materialize.”
“To find out that they had to retrace their steps, and start all over, and that we were not going to be able to stay on the air …. it was brutal, especially knowing how many people were watching, and had stayed watching, and were looking for that moment. To have to tell them we’re not going to be able to give it to them was a real bummer.”
More than 2.5 million people tuned into “Kornacki Cam” on Wisconsin’s primary election night, according to NBC.
Under state law, clerks can’t start processing absentee ballots until Election Day. Efforts to allow clerks to start processing them one day early have failed in the Republican-controlled state Legislature. The sheer number of ballots to be processed in large cities like Milwaukee can cause delays. It was worsened Aug. 11 with what local officials called a “human error” in transmitting results. The Associated Press called the race for Crowley at 2:34 a.m.
Kornacki said the Aug. 11 primary in Wisconsin is “right up there” with the wildest election nights he’s covered. In part, that’s because he said he looked at the blank map at the start of the night truly not knowing what would happen.
“The range of possibilities in our mind was Hong wins the thing easily, to Crowley wins it in a squeaker,” he said. “It’s unusual to go into an election night with a range that broad of possibilities.”
Kornacki said he felt the tide shifting toward Crowley when a substantial batch came in from Dane County that didn’t show Hong significantly running up her score on her home turf.
Still, he found it interesting how well Hong performed in Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago – known as the BOW counties.
“Just as I was thinking that Crowley was having a really good night, there’d be enough surprises where Hong was doing unexpectedly well, that I did keep kind of ping-ponging, mentally,” he said.
Wisconsin does have to forgive Kornacki for the misplaced emphasis on the pronunciation of Manitowoc County, but he got other challenging names right.
“I’m not 100% there yet,” he joked.
Kornacki says Crowley victory changes the way he looks at governor’s race
Kornacki is left wondering whether the Wisconsin results can be extrapolated to similar races elsewhere between a progressive or democratic socialist like Hong versus a more moderate candidate like Crowley, who’s backed by the Democratic Party establishment.
“I think [Hong] had a particularly inflammatory paper trail,” Kornacki said. “My suspicion is it had an effect on the electorate. The Democratic electorate there sort of collectively said, ‘Wait, we don’t want to be talking about this in the fall.'”
“The fact that the party establishment was able to rally around just enough support to win with [Crowley] at the last minute, it does say there is a party establishment that can still exert some real influence, at least in Wisconsin. I think that’s a question we’re asking everywhere.”
Kornacki said Crowley’s victory changes the way he looks at the Wisconsin governor’s race. If Hong had been the nominee, the race probably would have favored Republicans, he said.
Other political observers also think Crowley has better chances than Hong at beating Tiffany in November, when the national environment seems to favor Democrats at the midterm elections.
Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, shared on social media that it decided to shift its rating of the Nov. 3 governor’s election in Wisconsin from “toss-up” to “lean Democratic.”
“There have been lots of bad signs for [Republicans] in Wisconsin since 2024 – Democrats just needed to avoid a really weak [governor] nominee to start the general election favored,” Kondik said. “They very narrowly did that. So WI-GOV goes to Leans D.”
Hope Karnopp can be reached at HKarnopp@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Steve Kornacki talks about wild Wisconsin election night | Exclusive
Reporting by Hope Karnopp, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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By Hope Karnopp, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
