When Will We Find Out Who the Next President Is? Steve Kornacki Tells PEOPLE Why Timing Could Differ from 2020

In a presidential race that could be decided by razor-thin margins, Americans may have to be patient to get conclusive results on the winner. Still, Kornacki explains, 2024 has potential to move a little quicker

Election Day is here, and as the votes start pouring in, Steve Kornacki is preparing for a late night — one he doesn't necessarily expect will end with a clear result. 

The 45-year-old NBC News and MSNBC national political correspondent, renowned for his commitment to real-time election coverage and love of khakis, emphasizes a key lesson he's learned over a decade of covering elections: they are not always decided quickly.

“Each state has different rules and procedures, and the rise in vote by mail over the last several years has complicated it and extended the timeline in many states,” Kornacki tells PEOPLE.

He adds, “I think it's really kind of the mystery heading into election night this year. It wouldn't be entirely shocking to me if it took a few days again. I think there’s a wide range of possibilities here.”

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Explaining why results might not be called on election night, Kornacki notes that many swing states, which remained uncalled the morning after the 2020 presidential election, have not changed their rules since then.

“I think the two states that we pretty much know in advance will take a while if the results are reasonably close are Arizona and Nevada because there’s just a ton of ballots that they really don’t even begin processing and counting until after Election Day,” the correspondent explains. “Pennsylvania is just a wild card in terms of timing.”

One impact of COVID-19 was an increase in mail-in ballots for the 2020 presidential election, which slowed down the results. While Kornacki acknowledges that mail-in voting can still delay the process, he tells PEOPLE he expects to see fewer mail-in ballots and more early in-person voting this time around, potentially leading to quicker results than in 2020.

“Millions of votes have already been cast by people who went to a polling location ahead of Election Day,” he says. “That is a much more efficient set of votes to count than vote by mail. That's why I do think there's a chance here that this is quicker than 2020.”

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Rather than the form of voting — Kornacki’s preferred method being early morning on Election Day when the lines aren’t too long — the MSNBC correspondent emphasizes that the closeness of this race will likely be the reason things are slowed down, if polling turns out to be accurate.

“You can see how close these polls are just across the battleground states. We could have some razor-thin margins here and that’s going to delay being able to call the states.”

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Whether the election is called a few days later or that very night, Kornacki is there, high on adrenaline with his trusty touch-screen electoral map.

“I guess I feel kind of honored if people want to tune in and I feel kind of excited too because they’re looking for what I’m looking for: the excitement of witnessing it all,” he says. 

“It's like watching a picture develop one county at a time, one state at a time. Just the experience of getting to watch that, trying to make sense of it and then building towards somebody finally winning it, that occupies my mind and it gets me going.”

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As viewers prepare to tune in, Kornacki is eager to experience it all alongside them. “This election night is one big adventure that I'm on with the audience, so I just kind of feel like, ‘Come on along. Let's all enjoy the ride together.’ ”