With just 60 days to go in what is shaping up to be the most bonkers presidential election since, well, the last one, the person I most wanted to talk to for my Impolitic podcast was Dan Pfeiffer. Dan, of course, was one of the wunderkind-ish Obama guys who worked on the 2008 campaign, then followed his boss into the White House, where he served as communications director and then senior advisor for strategy and communications. Since departing the swamp, Dan has written New York Times bestselling books (most recently Battling the Big Lie), co-hosts Pod Save America (alongside former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor), and has a must-read Substack (The Message Box). In our conversation, Dan and I chopped up the post-Labor Day state of the presidential race, talked strategy for next week’s ABC debate, and looked at Donald Trump’s efforts to get right with America’s women. Herewith, a lightly edited and condensed version of our full conversation.

“Everything’s a Coin-Flip”

John Heilemann: For much of this campaign, Trump’s favorability rating hovered in the high 30s, low 40s. But in the battleground states, Trump is now regularly seeing favorability ratings in the mid-40s, his highest ever. How do you explain that?