Intelligencer - On the Cover: Exhale, America

For New York Magazine’s November 9, 2020 issue, national correspondent Gabriel Debenedetti recaps the 2020 campaign: a long and winding path to the White House for President-Elect Joe Biden that culminated in a tense election week.

“Florida was looking Trumpier than ever, and there was little Joe Biden’s middle- and lower-level campaign staffers could do but sit and wait early on Tuesday night. Most of them had been isolated at home for months, and the waiting wasn’t getting easier. The former vice-president’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, had warned them this might happen — the campaign would love to get a kill shot early in the evening with the Sunbelt states, she’d said, but they weren’t necessary to get Biden to 270 electoral votes. Still, when a brief window of optimism about Ohio’s suburbs started closing — despite a last-second trip to Cleveland from Biden himself, at the personal urging of Senator Sherrod Brown — the early results were feeling like ‘real gut punches,’ in the words of one top Biden ally who was in touch with the inner circle throughout the night…”

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• Critic Angelica Jade Bastién reviews Hulu’s new satirical horror film Bad Hair, calling it “the most stunning floundering of filmmaking in 2020 — a failure of empathy, intellect, and morality that I haven’t been able to shake.”

• Design editor Wendy Goodman visits a floating tiny house in Easthampton inspired by a duck blind.

• Lowbrow despicable: Winterized streeteries that aren’t really outdoor dining at all. View this issue’s Approval Matrix, our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.

• 40 across: Statue of Liberty builder. Play this week’s Crossword Puzzle.

• Check out nymag.com all week for more, including Emma Corrin’s transformation into the people’s princess for The Crown, the rise of the microbakery, and the Strategist’s guide to the warmest socks for winter.

• It’s not too late to get your ‘I Voted’ Stickers from our October 26 magazine cover. If you don’t receive a copy of the magazine as part of your subscription, or want to collect all of the covers, you can order the special issue here.

• We asked New York readers to share photos of their election celebrations. You can share your photos (and any accompanying stories) with us by emailing them to scenes@nymag.com.

• Go behind the scenes of The Cut’s November cover shoot, featuring comedian, actress, and writer Mitra Jouhari.