Maraú Península: How the Democrats Lost Virginia

In today’s newsletter: thirty movie musicals to watch this weekend; the most ambitious diary in history; and how Anne Carson gets away with everything.

Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race is a warning for Democrats, Benjamin Wallace-Wells writes, in his latest column. The former businessman won by a “small but clear margin, flipping political control of a state that Joe Biden had won by ten points just twelve months ago.” Last night’s results suggest that the Republicans have strengthened their base in Trump’s semi-absence. “I think the holy grail for the G.O.P.—maybe not for the country—is Trumpism without Trump,” the pollster Sean Trende tells Isaac Chotiner. “Sounding some of these Trump-y themes to excite rural voters . . . without sending the remainder of the suburban voters running screaming. And I think Youngkin was pretty effective at doing that.” Meanwhile, the Biden Presidency is in trouble: the votes on Tuesday, Wallace-Wells notes, point to a dynamic “in which Democrats control most political institutions but have been unable to effectively direct them.”

In New York City, Eric Adams, a retired N.Y.P.D. captain and the current Brooklyn borough president, will become the second Black mayor in the city’s history. Sarah Larson attended the Adams watch party, held in the ballroom of the Marriott in Brooklyn, where “greatest-city-in-the-world themes” prevailed, in the outfits (“tween girls in tutus and kente-cloth-pattern leggings” and people in “MUSLIMS 4 ADAMS sweatshirts”) and the music (Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love,” Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York”). The incoming mayor ran on a melting pot of platforms. “He has said that he is pro-safety and pro-business; he is also pro-vegetables, pro-cop, anti-racism, anti-illegal guns, pro-him-carrying-a-gun at churches, synagogues, City Hall,” Larson writes. “He has been a Republican; he is now a Democrat. He wants us to see past all that.”

—Jessie Li, newsletter editor

An illustration of a book with leggings that are running.

From the Election Desk

Glenn Youngkin speaks to a crowd at an Election Night rally.

Our Columnists

Glenn Youngkin’s Victory Is a Warning for Democrats

The gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey suggest that Republicans’ appeal to voters has strengthened without Trump.

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells

Eric Adams speaks to a crowd on Election Night.

Our Local Correspondents

After a Wild Ride, Eric Adams Takes the Wheel

For Adams, Tuesday included a momentous vote, a P.R. gaffe, and a promise to bring New York together.

By Sarah Larson

Man standing with his hands behind his back looking at election results on a television.

Q. & A.

How the Democrats Lost Virginia

The pollster Sean Trende believes that the outcome of the gubernatorial election has less to do with debates about critical race theory than with the economy and the typical disadvantages of the party in power.

By Isaac Chotiner

An illustration of a book with a knife sliced through the spine, with fallen paper shavings.

Editor’s Pick

Life and Letters

The Most Ambitious Diary in History

Claude Fredericks, a Bennington classics professor, knew Anaïs Nin and James Merrill, and taught Donna Tartt. He kept a journal for eight decades, and persuaded many in his orbit that he was writing a titanic masterpiece. Did he? A look inside the diary, estimated to be more than sixty-five thousand pages long, left behind by Fredericks, who provided inspiration for the character of Julian Morrow in Tartt’s novel “The Secret History.”

By Benjamin Anastas

On November 18th, The New Yorker’s cartoon editor will host the première of “Drawing Life,” a film about George Booth, exclusively for subscribers.

Song and Dance Dept.

Illustration of human pyramid of different characters from historical movies

The Front Row

Thirty Films That Expand the Art of the Movie Musical

Movie musicals are back in vogue. This year’s most prominent releases so far include Jon M. Chu’s film of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s “In the Heights,” Leos Carax’s “Annette,” and an adaptation of the recent Broadway hit “Dear Evan Hansen.” The trend is well timed: the intrinsic pleasure of hearing music, seeing it performed, and watching dancers in motion is a baseline of ecumenical gratification in times of trouble.

By Richard Brody

An illustration of two people riding a tandem bicycle.

Dept. of Delight

Illustration by Lilli Carré

“Like Herakles, Carson gets away with everything in this strange and surprisingly timely book.” Casey Cep reviews the poet Anne Carson’s “H of H Playbook,” which Cep calls “a cross between a dramaturge’s dream journal and a madman’s diary.”

The Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has written his first novel in nearly fifty years, “Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth.” Vinson Cunningham interviews the Nigerian writer about the origins of the book’s title, why novels are harder to write than plays, and the masochistic pull of political activism.

An illustration of a crossword puzzle wrapped around the arms of a person.

Fun & Games Dept.

Name Drop

Play Today’s Quiz

The fewer clues you need, the more points you receive.

By Liz Maynes-Aminzade

Crossword

A Moderately Challenging Puzzle

Author Ferrante: five letters.

By Natan Last

Two people sit by a body of water under a smoky orange sky.

Daily Shouts

Expressions More Accurate Than “the New Normal”

It was never normal?

By Dan Perlman and Ginny Hogan

An illustration shows two children playing the “Floor is Lava” game, as they stand atop a coffee table in a living room.

Daily Cartoon

Wednesday, November 3rd

By Ellis Rosen

P.S. Henri Matisse died on this day in 1954. The French artist, who once declared that art should be like a good armchair, also said, “From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life.” He warned his fiancée, Amélie Parayre, whom he married in 1898, when he was twenty-eight, “I love you dearly, mademoiselle; but I shall always love painting more.”