Impolitic with John Heilemann

John welcomes back David Axelrod — chief strategist to Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, founder of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, chief political analyst for CNN, host of The Axe Files, cohost of Hacks on Tap, and best-selling author of "Believer: My 40 Years in Politics" — to discuss the results of the midterm elections and their implications for Democrats heading into 2028. Axelrod explains the lessons his party should take from Election Night's blue bloodbath; how the transformation of the electoral map, together with the new Democratic nominating calendar, will impact the coming presidential race; and why November 3 was, “for romantics about politics, a truly great day.”

John welcomes back Nicolle Wallace, host of Deadline: White House on MS NOW and The Best People podcast, for their traditional Election Day hang. After seeing Donald Trump’s homestretch performance on the campaign trail, Nicolle argues that Trump no longer cares about politics or the fate of his party (with the exception of Jon Husted’s rock-hard heine); advises Democrats to resist their usual handwringing and overthinking; weighs in on Haley Stevens’s mental/emotional stability; tosses flowers to Jon Osoff and James Talarico; trashes the “whiny wimps” of MAGA and the manosphere; and predicts that Trump’s inevitable efforts to overturn the results of the midterms will wind up in the Supreme Court.

John welcomes back Tim Miller, host of The Bulwark Daily Podcast, for our penultimate pre-midterms episode. In a discussion broken into four parts – what he’s psyched about, worried about, pissed off about, and what’s cracking him up – Tim waxes rhapsodic about Adam Hamilton; frets that the polls are all wrong; heaps scorn on Mike Rogers, Vivek Ramaswamy, and J.D. Vance; and cackles over Clay Travis’s Cheesecake Factory fabulism and Iowa GOP House candidate Joe Mitchell’s risible effort to ego-fluff Donald Trump (and subsequent leaked-video humiliation). John and Tim also compare notes on a Republican gubernatorial candidate’s investment in a manufacturer of “high-tech penis rings”—only to discover that one of them has come armed with receipts.

John welcomes Des Moines-based Democratic strategist Matt Paul for the second installment of a special two-part episode on the midterm elections in Iowa. A longtime adviser to former two-term Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack who also served as Iowa state director on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, Paul argues that despite all appearances over the past 10 years—during which the Hawkeye State voted three times for Donald Trump (and by a 12-point margin in 2024)—Iowa has simply been masquerading as a red state; that the results on November 3 will, at a minimum, signal its return to its natural purple hue; and may wind up marking the beginning of the end of the Trump era.

John welcomes longtime Republican strategist Dave Kochel for the first part of a special doubleheader on the midterm elections in Iowa—and whether the state that launched Barack Obama may be about to swing back to blue after ten years of dominance by Donald Trump’s G.O.P. An Iowa native who ran Mitt Romney’s caucus operations in 2008 and 2012, confidant to former six-term governor Terry Branstad and current two-termer Kim Reynolds, and adviser to Senate candidate Ashley Hinson and congressman Zach Nunn, Kochel argues that while his party is facing fierce political headwinds, Democrats are too optimistic about their prospects in a state where the blue team’s brand remains borderline toxic.