Inside NBC News’ “Marathon” Election Night Plans

The lack of certainty in this election can “feel really heavy for people,” says Hallie Jackson. The NBC News anchor, who recently sat down for a final-campaign-stretch interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, is preparing for a “marathon” of coverage on election night. “At some point,” she tells me, “there will be clarity.”

But in the meantime, the network is undertaking a massive expansion of its coverage plans this year, providing 24 straight hours of live programming for the first time ever on Election Day, beginning at 5 p.m. and going into Wednesday. Likewise, NBC News’ streaming network is preparing for more than 40 hours of coverage, starting at 7 a.m. on Tuesday.

It will be particularly grueling for Tom Llamas, who will go straight from coanchoring the start of NBC’s nightly broadcast coverage to manning the big board. The preparations, he tells me, have “consumed my life.” From morning to night, the Top Story anchor will be poring over the data to ensure he has all the information at his fingertips. And he’ll be pouring “a lot of coffee” too.

“We are doing something that we haven’t done since I’ve been at NBC—which is start election night on Election Day,” says Jackson, who also serves as the network’s senior Washington correspondent. “And it’s going to be our heavy hitters,” Llamas chimes in, referring to network stalwarts like Lester Holt and Savannah Guthrie.

One new addition to the varsity squad this election cycle will be Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker, who assumed that role in 2023 and kicked off her tenure with a buzzy interview of former president Donald Trump last September. Welker tells me it is an “honor” to be joining “the A-team” for the first time on their biggest night.

Welker, Jackson, and Llamas will serve as the connective tissue between NBC News’ traditional broadcast coverage and ambitious streaming endeavors, designed with the intention of making election night feel seamless. The network’s sustained investment in a multiplatform strategy—spanning from traditional broadcast programming to a robust streaming operation to digital and social media strategies—will be put to the ultimate test.

NBC’s need to cast a wider net stems from industry-wide decline in recent years, with the media business becoming increasingly saturated with content and linear networks hemorrhaging viewers as consumers continue to cut the cord. And the main focus is on the network’s streaming service NBC News Now, a free offering touted as the fastest-growing streaming news network in the United States. NBC News Now is already widely distributed across more than 20 platforms, and even ahead of the big finale, it’s on pace for its best year on record.

Welker says that the goal in this election is to engage viewers of all age groups with the established infrastructure, arguing that NBC News is “reaching viewers where they are.”

For younger audiences, that means TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X, is where News Now plans on livestreaming its special coverage. News Now will also be vital for an experimental multiview feature on Peacock, inspired by the platform’s success in broadcasting the Olympics. “It’s going to be an incredibly satisfying experience,” NBC News executive vice president of programming Janelle Rodriguez teases, for those who were “absolutely glued” to the platform during the Summer Games in Paris.

News Now’s expansion has been a feather in the cap of NBCUniversal News Group chairman Cesar Conde, and he boasted about it in a profile in April. The goal, after launching the service in 2019 with minimal live offerings, was to “grab as much land” in the streaming space as possible, Conde said at the time. That way, when other networks made their foray into the arena, NBC News would be able to dominate.

Now, after years of ballyhooing the creation of a product that is freely accessible on essentially every platform in the market, it’s time to see whether the investment has paid off.

“We put a ton of effort and energy into making sure that we were able to go wall to wall at a very high level for our audience,” Rodriguez tells me. “If it takes 24 hours, 48 hours, we’re going to keep going,” Llamas adds. “Everyone on the team is just ready for any kind of surprise.”