Campaign trail offers bounty of collector’s goodies for MSNBC correspondents

Interviews with the presidential candidates and lots of frequent flier miles aren’t the only things a pair of MSNBC correspondents are logging on the campaign trail — they’re also rapidly adding to their unique 2016 memorabilia collections.

“I collect college sweatshirts and/or fleeces and/or T-shirts — college apparel, basically,” Steve Kornacki tells ITK.

{mosads}The host, a diehard college sports fan, says he’s plunking down $50 to $60 a pop to add to a collection he first started years ago. “This [campaign] has been great for me because every city we go to, every state we go to, I can go find the nearest college bookstore and get the perfect thing right there.”

So far, he’s collected about a dozen items from his travels this election cycle. And there’s an added bonus for the former “Up” host: The clothing purchases provide him with an on-the-scene TV wardrobe.

“It’s even better from my standpoint because I get to wear it when I’m hosting these shows from the road,” Kornacki says. “I’ve covered politics and I’ve learned a thing or two about pandering, and I guess it’s my way of pandering to the locals,” he quips.

During a roller coaster campaign, Kornacki, 36, has faced his own ups and downs when it comes to his collection. He had ordered a fleece from South Carolina’s Coastal Carolina University (which he admits he has an “odd fascination with”) ahead of a planned trip there before the Democratic primary last month. 

“It was being specially delivered to the bar where we were broadcasting from, and I paid extra for that,” Kornacki recalls. But plans changed, and the politics pro instead was suddenly on a plane to Nevada. “But somebody at the bar did collect it for me, and I’m going to add it to my collection,” Kornacki says confidently.

Kornacki’s colleague, Kasie Hunt, gets a jolt out of her own stockpile of 2016 goodies.

The political correspondent, who’s currently covering Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for MSNBC and NBC News, collects coffee mugs, something she’s been accumulating since the 2010 midterms. 

“In 2016, it’s kind of grown probably a little faster than my cabinets can accommodate,” Hunt says.

“Each one of them is kind of specific to a place in time, or a thing, or a story that I did, or a place where I was.”

Having been on the road for nearly two months straight, Hunt, 30, says she’s had to mail home many of the roughly 10 to a dozen mugs she’s collected this year. “I’ve gotten really good at wrapping them so the handles don’t break off,” she boasts.

The criterion for securing a spot in the mug collection is simple: “It has to be a place that has a little bit of character. … It’s usually places you want to remember that you were there. The campaign trail can be super ephemeral in that you travel so long in a row that all the days kind of blur together, and it can be hard to lay down markers to remember where you were.”

Hunt’s cups also serve an important function — aiding her caffeine addiction. 

“I’m obsessed — I couldn’t even tell you how much coffee I drink in a day.” 

But rather than beans, a lot of Hunt’s moolah is going toward multiplying her some 50-strong mug count. “I hope I haven’t spent more than $1,000 on mugs,” Hunt says.

And come November, Hunt fully expects her kitchen shelves to be fully stocked. 

“Hopefully my boyfriend will put up with them living in the cabinets,” she laughs. “I’ll pull them down off the shelf and be like, ‘Oh yeah, that time I was in South Carolina. I’m glad that election cycle’s over!’”