With just two weeks to go before Election Day, John Heilemann welcomes former Obama strategic and message maestro (and bff of the podcast) David Axelrod back to #HHW for his third time in the fire pit/splash zone. Axelrod — director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, host of The Axe Files podcast and co-host of Hacks on Tap, and senior political commentator for CNN — discusses the state of the midterm battlefield across the country, along with detailed analyses of key Senate races (AZ, GA, NV, OH, PA, WI) and gubernatorial contests (AZ, GA, OR, TX) that everyone will be watching on November 8; whether Democrats over-emphasized abortion rights at the expense of economics in their communications this fall; the impact of Republican demagoguery on crime in races such as Ron Johnson v. Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin and Dr. Oz v. John Fetterman in Pennsylvania (including his view that Fetterman has more to worry about in his debate with Oz related to that topic that concerning his health); whether Axe's former boss, 44, was right when he told Pod Save America that Democrats were doing themselves no favors politically with their ardent woke-ism and propensity for being a "buzzkill;" and the perils posed in the realm of international security by a Republican takeover of the House, as it becomes clearer every day that the likeliest next Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, is ready and willing to sign on to a foreign policy inspired by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Axelrod also waxes lyrical about a prominent New York politician who is currently waging war against the booming rat population in Manhattan — and whom Axe suggests might run for president one day, branding himself The Verminator.

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