Watch: America is Crushing on MSNBC's Out Electoral 'Map Guy' Steve Kornacki

History might remember 2020 as the election year voters chose to embrace facts and science by electing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but it's also when expertise became sexy again. Election watchers developed a crush on MSNBC's highly informed analyst and "map guy," the openly gay anchor Steve Kornacki.

Whether it was the intellectual thrill of hearing numbers explained and the electoral vote map demystified, or the theory of propinquity - the tendency of human beings to form attachments to those with whom they are in extended contact - Kornacki's constant TV presence during the nation's days-long marathon of ballot tabulation proved more than merely comforting to anxious viewers.

Entertainment Weekly noted how "Kornacki rarely took a break after results began arriving on Tuesday, providing live coverage for more than 12 hours straight into Wednesday morning.

"Thursday evening, as new vote totals continued to arrive from Pennsylvania, he returned to the studio rather than take a scheduled sleep break," the EW story added. "As the week wore on, observers became more and more awed, as well as more and more, shall we say, thirsty."

Kornacki's indefatigable energy left even his fellow anchors in awe, EW noted. Craig Melvin sent out a joking tweet that "There's been some reporting he may be a robot," while Ali Velshi cracked, "In the interest of preserving him for America, I will remove @SteveKornacki from TV at noon today and place him in protective custody in a room with comfy blankets, soft pillows and warm milk."

"Kornacki was not the only map dude on air that night, but he was – according to the internet and my colleagues at The Goods – the most attractive to watch," wrote Terry Nguyen at Vox, who swooned over the anchor's "nerdishly disheveled energy" and "wonky aura."

Over at another NBC program, the hosts of the "Today" show regarded Kornacki as a "national treasure" who is "part political junkie, part human calculator, [and] part Energizer Bunny." The "Today" show hosts noted that "Between Election Day and Friday night, Steve got a total of five hours of sleep" - and he was "still going strong" at that point.

After four years of relentlessly freestyle "alternative facts" from the White House (and the correspondingly herculean efforts by legitimate media to keep up with the task of fact checking), perhaps what America craved most was a facility with - and comfort around - hard, objective factuality. In this, Kornacki reigned: As Nguyen dubbed him, the MSNBC anchor "was the reliable man many turned to with the most up-to-date information on the state of the race."

Watch the "Today" show clip below.