The Election-Week Diet of Steve Kornacki, Who Runs on Diet Coke and Adrenaline

If 2016 taught us anything, it’s that nothing is guaranteed on election night—except for Steve Kornacki exhibiting superhuman energy on television. The NBC News and MSNBC national political correspondent will once again spend the evening in front of his “Big Board,” interpreting the results as numbers roll in from around the country in real time. The secret to his consistently intense delivery? Diet Coke. A lot of Diet Coke.

“I couldn't even tell you how many,” he says. “It’s just sort of a constant supply.”

We spoke to Kornacki on election eve about what his routine looks like during this final stretch. His coverage will begin at 4 p.m. EST on MSNBC and continue until [indecipherable groaning noise]. Pace yourself, Steve!

For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and everyone in between about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

GQ: What’s your day-to-day diet usually like, and how does that change during election week and on election day specifically?

Steve Kornacki: Boy, it changes a lot. I think I'll forget to eat a lot during election week. Certainly on election night. I find it kind of slows me down, so I try to be sparing anyway if I'm going to be on TV for long stretches of time. And then if it's like 2016, election night goes into the morning, goes into the next day, and then the next thing I know, it's Wednesday night at 10 o'clock and I'm just going home tired. I can't even tell you what, if anything, I eat in that time.

Is your energy pure adrenaline or is it helped along by caffeine?

Lots of Diet Coke. I'll drink a ton of Diet Coke. I think that's the main thing. Once we start getting election results, I feed off the energy. There's constant stimulus. Any state I look at, we're getting new votes constantly, the picture's changing, the picture's evolving. It’s kind of perpetual motion there. So that keeps me alert and I get energized by that. And, before the election, I guess some combination of anticipation and terror, fear of failure.

How many Diet Cokes do you have on an average day? And then what does that intake look like on an election day?

Way too many and too many to count. On a normal day, I'll have a couple. But on election night, I just keep it nearby and I’m just kind of regularly using it. These days [people] all tell you, "Oh, do you know what's in that?" And I say, "Well, no I don't.” But I guess it is supposed to be bad for you.

Did you have a trial and error process over the years honing in on what it takes for you to be this energized on camera? For instance, was there ever an election night that felt disastrous because you were crashing early?

No, as soon as it's over, or at least my part of it’s over, it'll all catch up to me real quickly. And then I’m ready to just go and crash wherever I am, whether it's putting my head down on a desk or just going home and falling asleep. I can go from a hundred to zero real quickly, but I don’t think it’s happened before an election’s over.

How much do you typically sleep, and how does that compare to your sleep on election week?

Not a lot. I haven't been sleeping well lately. I think I am a little bit more anxious about this one, just because there's so many variables this time around that we just haven't dealt with before. There’s a lot more uncertainty about how this is all going to go and I think that's given me a lot of anxiety. So even on nights when I'm feeling tired when I get home and maybe I can sneak in three or four hours of sleep, I find myself just laying awake. I tried the Calm app, but that I don’t rec—well, maybe I got a bad story or something—but it didn't work for me.

Do you have any forms of stress relief? You mentioned the Calm app didn’t work, but any other types of meditation, maybe?

No, no. Everybody's recommended stuff like that to me. I'm very bad at it. I try to do the deep breathing exercises and I end up panicking in the middle of them and it never goes well.

Can you walk me through an average day—today, for instance—leading into the election? What's your routine like?

We did a late night special last night, so I got back a little bit past midnight. I would say I slept four hours. Probably about four. I had carved out time this morning—I actually got a haircut, which I hadn't had in months. I just figured if I'm going to be on I might as well get it done, so I found an hour this morning and did that. We’ve just been doing hits. Just before I got on with you, I did affiliate hits. I've done a bunch of those today. I'm sorry. This is not the most orderly story.

We had a big long meeting to plan election night. We have tests going on constantly, constantly testing stuff we're going to have on the board. We have simulations that are running and I'm trying to test my ability to process the information on the fly and have something intelligent to say about it, or useful to say about it. The time just goes very quickly.

What does it look like when you crash, and what’s the recovery process like?

It’s usually not bad once I get just one night of sleep. I'm thinking back to 2016 and I'm remembering that Wednesday being kind of endless, but I don't remember the rest of the week being bad at all. I remember getting to the weekend and then feeling like, “ah, I'm going to take Saturday.” It was a good feeling.

Do you exercise at all?

I do a lot of walking. That's my main thing, especially since the pandemic, I walk to and from the office every day and that's six miles. That's become my thing.

And you really don't eat anything on election night?

Not on election night, no. I'll try to have something during the day. Maybe it's a bagel or something. I feel like I'm going to be on all night [and], I do feel eating slows me down. It will make me sleepy. That’s the thing I have found, is that the fatigue will catch up to me when I start eating.

What will your breakfast be on election day?

I haven't had breakfast in 28 or 29 years.

Oh my goodness. Okay.

Yeah. They tell you it's the most important, I think they're full of it.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Originally Appeared on GQ