John Avlon

John Avlon is an award-winning journalist, author, news anchor, and media executive. He is a former CNN senior political analyst and anchor, editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, and the 2024 Democratic congressional nominee in New York’s First District. He currently hosts a solutions journalism podcast on The Bulwark called How to Fix It and serves as the chairman of Citizens Union, New York’s oldest good government group.

He serves as the co-president of the Steinbeck Writer’s Retreat in Sag Harbor, New York. He is on the Board of Governors of The Overseas Press Club and the advisory board of the Theodore Roosevelt Association. In 2010, Avlon was a co-founder of No Labels—a group of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents that created the Problem-Solvers Caucus in Congress.

Avlon is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Business School. He is married to Margaret Hoover, the host of PBS’s Firing Line. The New York Times says, “Their telegenic union may be a lesson in overcoming the orthodoxies that divide us.” They live in Sag Harbor, New York, with their son, Jack, and daughter, Toula Lou.