Eva McKend is a Correspondent covering National Politics for CNN. She joined CNN’s Washington D.C. bureau in September 2021 as a National Politics Reporter.

McKend previously served as an on-air Congressional Correspondent, reporting for Spectrum’s 24-hour news stations across the country from the nation’s capital.

At CNN, she has covered some of the most high profile political stories in the country including Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 run for the White House where she exclusively interviewed Harris just two days before the election. She also was the network’s trusted correspondent on the 2021 Virginia Governor’s race, the 2022 midterm election in battleground Georgia, the 2024 Republican Presidential primary and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent campaign for president. After the late Jimmy Carter went into hospice in 2023, Eva spent significant time in Plains telling the stories of the people in Sumter County, Georgia through Carter’s death the following year.

She is known in Washington for her pointed questions to people in leadership. Her question to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on reparations for slavery in 2019 elicited his most robust rejection of the concept to date and drove the news cycle nationwide for several days.

Eva’s series of reports on Black hemp farmers following the crop’s legalization in the 2018 Farm Bill earned her a first-place prize in enterprise and investigative broadcast reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists in Louisville. She was also nominated for an Ohio Valley Regional Emmy for the work. She’s become a key voice in the industry reporting out the untold stories of the most marginalized communities.

From 2015-18, she served as an anchor at WCAX-TV, the market-leading CBS affiliate in Vermont where she was also known for her strong interviews with elected officials. She was named a Rising Star by Vermont Business Magazine in 2017.

Before Vermont, Eva worked as a reporter for Spectrum News Hudson Valley from 2012-14 where she was recognized by the New York State Associated Press for Best Continuing Coverage. The AP also gave her a nod for General Excellence in Individual Reporting.

​Prior to this work, she spent a summer as a Washington, D.C.-based correspondent for Springfield, Mo., CBS affiliate KOLR/KOZL.

Eva is a graduate of Swarthmore College and earned her master’s degree in broadcast and digital journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University through the Turner Diversity Fellowship. She is a proud member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the local WABJ chapter.