New York Magazine’s October 9–22 cover story is by Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi, who hit the campaign trail for 13 weeks to shadow the many floundering Republican presidential candidates vying for the nomination.
“The best way to understand the dynamics of a presidential race is to rent a Mustang and drive across the primary states until you feel like you have seen enough. That’s what I set out to do this summer, observing most of the top polling candidates up close over the course of 13 weeks,” said Nuzzi. “I was surprised by how little coverage the campaign was getting outside of updates about polling and debates, and what I discovered on the ground was something that really didn’t resemble a primary at all.”
The cover image is by photo illustrator Joe Darrow. The candidates pictured are Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, former vice-president Mike Pence, former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, former governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Elsewhere in the issue, features writer Reeves Wiedeman profiles The Athletic’s senior NBA insider Shams Charania, who is rewriting how the game is covered, while his new colleagues at the New York Times wonder if he’s a threat to their journalism. Also in the issue is a conversation between film critic Bilge Ebiri and director Michael Mann on the decades of obsessive research that went into his new movie, Ferrari, and how he created the vivid, moody worlds of his many memorable films, such as The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, and Miami Vice.