Election maps and race charts: A Groton teacher set the course

NBC News analyst Steve Kornacki arrived in Lexington, Ky., this week to cover the Breeders' Cup, a trip that doubles as a reunion with the former middle school teacher he credits with starting his interest in politics. The visit comes days before the midterm elections, when he is scheduled to work the network's vote coverage.

Kornacki, who grew up in Groton, serves as chief data analyst for NBC News and NBC Sports. He moved to NBC News full time from MSNBC after the 2020 election. During that cycle, he spent days working the vote-tallying maps on MSNBC in Gap khaki pants, and People magazine included him on its Sexiest Men of 2020 list.

He will meet in Kentucky with Bob Catalini, a former teacher in his 70s who lives in Sandwich and now works with a digital horse racing publication called The Real Players Inside The Backstretch. Catalini taught sixth-grade social studies at Groton-Dunstable Regional Middle School. In 1990, his class covered the Massachusetts governor's race, an open contest after three-term Governor Michael Dukakis declined to run again. The general election pitted Republican William Weld against Democrat John Silber.

Catalini held a mock election for the class after Silber won the primary and asked for volunteers to portray the candidates. Kornacki raised his hand to play the Democrat. He made campaign signs, handed out leaflets, argued the case with classmates in the cafeteria and on the playground, and read about the race. Catalini said Kornacki was "very driven, very enthusiastic, very inquisitive" and that wanting to dive into a subject was never an issue for him.

The mock vote went to Silber. The real race did not. Kornacki said he was "crushed" by the result. He kept at it, advocating in 1993 for a Proposition 2 1/2 override in Groton to head off school budget cuts, and volunteering for a state representative, according to a 2012 essay he wrote for The Groton Herald.

What stuck with him came after the election, when Catalini walked the class through the results town by town. Kornacki said he knew the names of the cities and towns but not why one voted Democratic and another Republican. "It was fascinating, and it just gave me a framework for the future," he said.

Catalini later became athletic director and varsity basketball coach at Groton-Dunstable Regional High School and needed a statistician for his staff. "Of course it was Steve," Catalini said. Three decades later, Kornacki is still working through numbers on television.

NBC News launched a YouTube livestream called the Kornacki Cam earlier this year. The network plans 13 hours of coverage starting at 5 p.m. on Election Day, with the Kornacki Cam beginning at 5:30 p.m. He also contributes weekly to segments during NBC Sports' Sunday night football games, broke down snowboarding events at the 2026 Milan Olympics, and provided a digest of Kentucky Derby history.

Kornacki said his interest in horse racing goes to childhood trips with his uncle to Suffolk Downs in East Boston and Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H. Suffolk Downs is now closed. "I love that it's like a puzzle you're trying to solve," he said of thoroughbred racing, adding that he tries to work out the pace of a race and who it might favor or hurt.

Catalini joined The Real Players last year. The site was founded five years ago by Rasi Harper and Maurice Davis, two barbers from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to document the people who work in the sport. Catalini has helped with interviews, including one video in which Kornacki, holding an extra-large Dunkin' hot coffee, speaks with Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey about his career. Kornacki said he can usually polish off two or three of those coffees a day.