6 Takeaways From Glenn Youngkin’s Win in VirginiaEarly data suggests the Republican governor-elect benefited from higher turnout in pro-GOP areas and among white working-class voters in particular.
The Uncertain Future of Trumpism Without TrumpRepublicans thought Ed Gillespie had found a way to appeal to Trump supporters without alienating suburbanites. Turns out it’s not so easy.
Can Democrats Move Left — and to the Suburbs?Liberal activists want economic populism. But Democrats’ path to a House majority cuts through affluent suburbs that shunned Bernie Sanders.
Pepsi’s Super Bowl Ad Drags Justin Through NYC
Click above to witness Pepsi’s latest Super Bowl effort. As usual, their big ad involves a celebrity doing something slightly embarrassing and vaguely funny — remember Jimmy Fallon and Parker Posey awkwardly dancing on cars? Or Diddy driving a Pepsi delivery truck? Or Britney Spears and Beyoncé as Gladiators? (Okay, that last one was awesome). But this one features an extended cameo by our favorite lady of all, New York City. Justin Timberlake starts out the commercial with some friends at his NYC restaurant, Southern Hospitality. He’s mysteriously yanked out the door and dragged up the side of a building (where SNL star Andy Samberg makes a predictably uncomfortable cameo). Then he’s thrown into the Hudson River near Chelsea and pulled into the suburbs (where he runs into Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and gets hit in the head with a flat-screen TV). We’re not really sure about the message of this ad, but anything that involves a celebrity getting dunked in the Hudson makes us happy. If not particularly thirsty.
Pepsi USA [Official site]
in other news
Michael Jackson Has Been Living Right Underneath Our Prosthetic Noses!Michael Jackson has been spotted around town in New York periodically in recent months, but until today, we didn’t know where he was living. Turns out he’d been holed up with a private family in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, where he’d been “trying to be normal,” according to FoxNews.com columnist Roger Friedman. That’s less than an hour from here! Technically, that put Jackson miles and miles closer to our bustling city than he is to “normalcy.” Jackson has reportedly returned to L.A., but good for him for trying to introduce his family to the quiet life in the Jersey suburbs? Good for him. For a short time, his kids could finally have a normal life, going to the movies, attending public school, making regular friends. After all, if your new little friend has millions of dollars to spend at the Short Hills mall, who cares if he has to do it wearing a mask?
Jacko Lived with New Jersey Family for Three Months [Fox 411]
Earlier: Why the Fug Isn’t Anybody Paying Attention to Michael Jackson?
numbers game
We Have Seen the Traffic, and It Is Us
If you’re like us, you’ve probably tried to reconcile your daily observations of forever-snarled Manhattan traffic with the fact that neither you, nor anyone you know, owns a car. Then, if you’re like us, you’ve assumed that it’s all suburban commuters’ fault. If so, the Times has some shocking revelations for you today. The data:
• Total number of daily car commuters in Manhattan: 263,000
• Number of those commuters who live within the five boroughs: 141,000
• Percentage of total commuters who live within the five boroughs: 53
• Number of those commuters who live in Queens: 51,300
• Percentage of total commuters who live in Queens: 19.5
• Number of those commuters who live in Manhattan: 23,900
• Percentage of total commuters who live in Manhattan: 9
• Percentage of total commuters who merely pass through Manhattan en route elsewhere: 20
• Percentage of government workers who drive to work: 35
• Amount those government workers pay for parking: $0
In Traffic’s Jam, Who’s Driving May Be Surprising [NYT]
in other news
Take the 8:15 Into the City, or Out of It
Score another defeat for John Cheever. The world immortalized in his classic short story “The Five Forty-Eight” — about an emotionally distant adman who lives in the fictional Westchester suburb of Shady Hill — has long gone the way of the three-martini lunch. But now it seems even the very idea of the Westchester commuter could be disappearing, too: For the first time in the 23-year history of Metro-North, less than half its riders are commuters from the suburbs into Manhattan, according to a report in today’s Times — 49.3 percent, to be exact, down from 65.3 percent of riders in 1984.
