[1][5][7] Axelrod was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, and grew up in its Stuyvesant Town area.

[12] His mother, Myril Bennett (née Davidson), was a journalist at PM, a liberal-leaning 1940s newspaper, and later an advertising executive at Young & Rubicam.

[13] His father, Joseph Axelrod, was a psychologist and avid baseball fan, who emigrated from Eastern Europe to the United States at the age of eleven.

After graduating from New York's Stuyvesant High School[15] in 1972, Axelrod attended the University of Chicago, where he majored in political science.

[19] As an undergraduate, Axelrod wrote for the Hyde Park Herald, covering politics, and earned an internship at the Chicago Tribune.

[24] For a few years after high school, the family struggled to find programs that would keep her happy and fulfilled, but were able to place her in Misericordia, a large dormitory-style group home in 2002, where she leads an active life.

During the 1986 Illinois gubernatorial election, he was hired by the campaign of then-Attorney General Neil Hartigan, but switched to work for former Senator Adlai Stevenson III when he entered the Democratic primary.

Axelrod's effect on Ontario was heard through the winning Liberal appeal to "working families" and placing an emphasis on positive policy contrasts like canceling corporate tax breaks to fund education and health.

"[33][34] Axelrod worked as a consultant for Exelon, an Illinois-area utility which operated the largest fleet of nuclear reactors in the United States.

[42] Axelrod contemplated taking a break from politics during the 2008 presidential campaign, as five of the candidates—Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Chris Dodd and Tom Vilsack—were past clients.

1 factor they were looking for in a candidate, and 51 percent of those voters chose Barack Obama," said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider.

Axelrod is credited with implementing a strategy that encourages the participation of people, a lesson drawn partly from Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign as well as a personal goal of Barack Obama.

Axelrod explained to Rolling Stone, "When we started this race, Barack told us that he wanted the campaign to be a vehicle for involving people and giving them a stake in the kind of organizing he believed in".

[49] The Obama strategy stood in contrast to Hillary Clinton's campaign, which benefited from high name recognition, large donors and strong support among established Democratic leaders.

[55][56] When details of the 2010 United States foreclosure crisis were publicized in 2010, notably robo-signing, Axelrod was widely criticized for downplaying the magnitude of the crisis in his comments to the press,[57][58] telling the audience of CBS News' Face the Nation that the Obama administration's "hope is this moves rapidly and that this gets unwound very, very quickly" and that he's "not sure that a national moratorium" is called for since "there are in fact valid foreclosures that probably should go forward.

"[59] Notably, Axelrod made this statement after several banks had voluntarily suspended foreclosures and evictions in order to investigate improprieties.

On February 19, 2013, Axelrod joined NBC News and MSNBC as a senior political analyst,[citation needed] a position he held until September 2015 when he moved to CNN.

[65][failed verification] In 2015, Axelrod began hosting a podcast titled The Axe Files a series of in-depth discussions and interviews with various political figures.

[66] In June 2019[67] he started the podcast Hacks on Tap with co-host Mike Murphy, a show where the two discuss news and updates from the 2020 presidential campaign trail.

[70] In 2022, he announced his intention[clarification needed] to retire as director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, and become a senior fellow and chair of its advisory board, effective January 2023.

UChicago President Paul Alivisatos said of his tenure that "David’s leadership of the IOP has driven its incredible growth and success over the past decade.