NBC News on Sunday debuted a county-level reporting initiative that will look at voter attitudes and trends shaping the 2024 presidential election over the next year.
Dubbed The Deciders, this hyper-local initiative is comprised of in-depth, on-the-ground reporting from a team of nearly three dozen journalists focused on the 2024 presidential race in seven key counties nationwide.
These reports will appear across all NBCUniversal News Group platforms, including NBC News, NBC News Now, and NBCNews.com.
Building on County to County, which focused on the demographic importance of bellwether counties in 2020 and 2022, The Deciders will tell stories about the people and the issues throughout 2024 — helping define and examine the larger themes and sub-currents shaping voters’ decision making up and down the ballot.
Through voter interviews, focus groups, and in-depth reporting, dedicated reporting teams in each of the seven counties – one each in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – will regularly return to the same voters and communities throughout the year to spotlight how they are thinking about the issues and how their priorities shift or hold up over time.
To launch The Deciders, NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki joined moderator Kristen Welker on this past Sunday’s Meet the Press.
“There are more than 3,100 counties across the United States,” said Kornacki. “But we have got seven that we’re going to drill down on between now and Election Day ’24. I think they’re going to help us tell the story through next year … on Election Night next year, they are all going to loom large for different reasons.”
NBC News correspondents that will be part of The Deciders initiative include Vaughn Hillyard from Maricopa County, Ariz., along with producer Dan Gallo and embed Alex Tabet; Correspondent Marissa Parra from Miami-Dade County, Fla., along with producer Bianca Seward and embed Alec Hernández; Correspondent Blayne Alexander from Gwinnett County, Ga., along with producer Charlie Gile and embed Nnamdi Egwuonwu; Correspondent Shaq Brewster from Dane County, Wis., and Kent County, Mich., along with producer Kailani Koenig and embed reporters Jillian Frankel and Sarah Dean; Correspondent Steve Patterson from Washoe County, Nev., along with producer Brian Lavietes and embed reporter Katherine Koretski; and Correspondent Dasha Burns from Erie County, Pa., along with producer Abby Brooks and embed Emma Barnett.
NBC News will also work with local news partners in these regions to help with The Deciders initiative. NBC News correspondents will work closely with local reporters, exchanging reporting regularly and offering audiences a constant on-the-ground presence in these crucial communities.
Reporting partners will include NBC-owned WTVJ (Miami, Fla.) and affiliates KPNX (Phoenix, Ariz.), WXIA (Atlanta, Ga.), WOOD (Grand Rapids, Mich.), KRNV (Reno, Nev.), WICU (Erie, Pa.), and WMTV (Madison, Wis).
Watch Kornacki’s announcement on The Deciders on this past Sunday’s Meet the Press below.