AT THEIR MISSTEPS As Prices Jump BRUISED AT POLLS ...

VOL. CLXXI . . . . No. 59,232

? 2021 The New York Times Company

NEW YORK, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Late Edition

Today, a mix of clouds and sunshine, chilly, high 50. Tonight, cloudy skies, frost in colder areas, low 39. Tomorrow, mainly sunny skies, high 50. Weather map appears on Page B9.

$3.00

Fed Dials Back

Stimulus Policy

As Prices Jump

Phasing Out Tool From

Early in Pandemic

By JEANNA SMIALEK

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday took its first step toward withdrawing support for the American economy, saying that it would begin to wind down a stimulus program that's been in place since early in the pandemic as the economy heals and prices climb at an uncomfortably rapid pace.

Central bank policymakers struck a slightly more wary tone about inflation, which has jumped this year amid booming consumer demand for goods and supply snarls. While officials still expect quick cost increases to fade, how quickly that will happen is unclear.

Fed officials want to be prepared for any outcome at a time when the economy's trajectory is marked by grave uncertainty. They are not sure when prices will begin to calm down, to what extent the labor market will recover the millions of jobs still missing after last year's economic slump, or when they will begin to raise interest rates -- which remain at rockbottom to keep borrowing and spending cheap and easy.

So the central bank's decision to dial back its other policy tool, large-scale bond purchases that keep money flowing through financial markets, was meant to give the Fed flexibility it might need to react to a shifting situation. Officials on Wednesday laid out a plan to slow their $120 billion in monthly Treasury bond and mortgage-backed security purchases by $15 billion a month starting in November. The purchases can lower long term interest rates and prod investors into investments that would spur growth.

Assuming that pace holds, the bond buying would stop altogeth-

Continued on Page A21

Justices Appear

Likely to Strike

Gun-Carry Law

By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON -- A New York law that imposes strict limits on carrying guns outside the home seemed unlikely to survive its encounter with the Supreme Court, based on questioning from the justices on Wednesday.

The law requires people seeking a license to carry a handgun in public to show a "proper cause," and a majority of the justices seemed prepared to say that it imposes an intolerable burden on the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment. But several justices seemed open to allowing the state to exclude guns from crowded public settings or other vulnerable places.

The Second Amendment protects a constitutional right just as the First Amendment does, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said. People seeking to exercise either of those rights, he said, should not have to demonstrate to the government that they have a good reason or special need to do so.

"You don't have to say, when you're looking for a permit to speak on a street corner or whatever, that, you know, your speech is particularly important," he said. "So why do you have to show in this case, convince somebody, that you're entitled to exercise your Second Amendment right?"

At the same time, the chief justice was among the justices who asked whether guns could be barred at settings as varied as subways, protests, Yankee Stadium, Times Square on New

Continued on Page A21

The Path to the Virginia Governorship

Glenn Youngkin, a Republican financier, defeated the Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former governor, by running up high margins in less populous areas of the state.

VOTE SHARE

McAuliffe lead Youngkin lead

50% 60 70

Largest Youngkin share: Lee County, 88%

Roanoke

All data as of 5 p.m. Wednesday

Alexandria

Richmond

Largest McAuliffe share: Petersburg, 85%

Norfolk

Virginia Beach

SIZE OF LEAD

McAuliffe 5,000 20,000 50,000

Youngkin

100,000 votes

Roanoke

Alexandria

Largest McAuliffe lead: Fairfax County, 130,071 votes

Richmond

Norfolk Virginia Beach

Largest Youngkin lead: Bedford County, 22,888 votes

PARTISAN SHIFT FROM THE 2020 ELECTION

Every county and major city in the state voted more Republican than in the last presidential election.

Alexandria

+5 +10 +15 percentage points

Smallest shift: Buchanan County, +2

Largest shift: Radford, +18

Sources: Associated Press; Edison Research

Richmond

Roanoke

Norfolk

Virginia Beach

JASMINE C. LEE, MATTHEW BLOCH, SARA CHODOSH AND BILL MARSH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

G.O.P. Turns Education Into Potent Wedge Issue

By LISA LERER and JEREMY W. PETERS

After an unexpectedly strong showing on Tuesday night, Republicans are heading into the 2022 midterm elections with what they believe will be a highly effective political strategy capitalizing on the frustrations of suburban parents still reeling from the devastating fallout of pandemic-era schooling.

Seizing on education as a newly potent wedge issue, Republicans have moved to galvanize crucial groups of voters around what the party calls "parental rights" issues in public schools, a hodge-

Seizing on Suburban Parents' Anxiety as Midterms Near

podge of conservative causes ranging from eradicating mask mandates to demanding changes to the way children are taught about racism.

Yet it is the free-floating sense of rage from parents, many of whom felt abandoned by the government during the worst months of the pandemic, that arose from the off-year elections as one of the

most powerful drivers for Republican candidates.

Across the country, Democrats lost significant ground in crucial suburban and exurban areas -- the kinds of communities that are sought out for their well-funded public schools -- that helped give the party control of Congress and the White House. In Virginia, where Republicans made schools central to their pitch, education rocketed to the top of voter concerns in the final weeks of the race, narrowly edging out the economy.

The message worked on two frequencies. Pushing a mantra of

Continued on Page A16

VICTOR J. BLUE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Taliban police on patrol in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. ISIS has widened its reach beyond that city.

BRUISED AT POLLS, DEMOCRATS LOOK AT THEIR MISSTEPS

Biden and Lawmakers Are Pressed to Deliver for Fatigued Voters

By JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEXANDER BURNS

WASHINGTON -- Reeling from a barrage of unexpected losses, an array of Democrats on Wednesday pleaded with President Biden and his party's lawmakers to address the quality-oflife issues that plagued their candidates in elections on Tuesday from heavily Hispanic San Antonio to the suburbs of Virginia, New Jersey and New York.

Although they had braced for a close race for Virginia governor, Democrats were caught off guard by the intensity of the backlash against their party in major offyear elections. Republicans claimed all three statewide offices in Virginia, will most likely take control of the state's House of Delegates and came close to winning an upset over Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, whose re-election had been presumed safe by officials in both parties.

Just as jarring for Democrats were some of the less prominent contests: The powerful New Jersey State Senate president, Steve Sweeney, was trailing a truck driver who ran a shoestring campaign; a Latino Republican

flipped a Democratic seat in South San Antonio; and Democrats were thrashed in local races across Long Island.

The scope of the party's setbacks illustrated that voters were fatigued from the demands of the continuing coronavirus pandemic and angry about the soaring prices and scarcity of goods they were confronting every day. While Democrats' strength in cities and some large suburbs saved them from even deeper losses, their electoral coalition showed signs of fraying as voters vented their unhappiness with the party in power.

Responding to Tuesday's results like an alarm bell in the night, Democrats on the ballot next year said that unless Mr. Biden and other party leaders addressed voters' close-to-home frustrations, they were certain to lose their congressional majorities.

"We were so willing to take seriously a global pandemic, but we're not willing to say, `Yeah, inflation is a problem, and supply chain is a problem, and we don't have

Continued on Page A13

Murphy Re-elected in New Jersey In an Unexpectedly Close Contest

This article is by Tracey Tully, Nick Corasaniti and Katie Glueck.

Philip D. Murphy, a New Jersey Democrat whose aggressive approach to controlling the pandemic became a focal point of the bid to unseat him, narrowly held onto the governor's office in an unexpectedly close election that highlighted stark divisions over mask and vaccine mandates, even in a liberal-leaning state.

With roughly 90 percent of the vote tallied, Mr. Murphy was ahead of his Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, by less than one percentage point when The Associated Press called the race just before 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday after a protracted count. The bulk of the outstanding votes were in Democratic strongholds.

For Democrats who had long assumed Mr. Murphy's victory

BRYAN ANSELM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Gov. Philip D. Murphy campaigned on his liberal agenda.

was assured even as the national electoral picture darkened, the 24 hours after polls closed proved tense: Mr. Ciattarelli at one point held a substantial lead.

Every public opinion poll throughout the campaign had showed that Mr. Murphy would coast to victory. But Mr. Ciattarelli

Continued on Page A18

DIFFERENT ENOUGH Glenn Youngkin won over Virginia voters put off by Trumpism but receptive to elevating another Republican. PAGE A15

RED SHIFT IN NEW YORK While Eric Adams easily won the New York City mayor's race, Republicans made inroads elsewhere. PAGE A18

In Afghanistan, Rising Threat From ISIS Looms Over Taliban

This article is by Victor J. Blue, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Christina Goldbaum.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Aref Mohammad's war against the Islamic State ended earlier this fall when his unit of Taliban fighters was ambushed by the terrorist group in eastern Afghanistan. A bullet shattered his femur, leaving him disabled and barely able to walk, never mind fight.

But for the Taliban movement he served under, now the government of Afghanistan, the war against the Islamic State was just beginning.

"If we knew where they were from, we would pursue them and destroy them," Mr. Mohammed, 19, said from his hospital bed in Ja-

lalabad, the capital of Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar Province where the Islamic State has maintained a presence since 2015.

In the two months since the Taliban took control of the country, the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan -- known as Islamic State Khorasan or ISIS-K -- has stepped up attacks across the country, straining the new and untested government and raising alarm bells in the West about the potential resurgence of a group that could eventually pose an international threat.

The attacks have been aimed mostly at Taliban units like Mr. Mohammad's, and at Afghanistan's Shiite minorities. Suicide

Continued on Page A8

NATIONAL A12-21, 24

Victory for New York Cabbies

Indebted taxi drivers who stopped eating to protest an earlier bailout plan were assured of more relief. PAGE A24

Next Vaccine Wave: Children

Many parents have been eagerly waiting to get their 5- to 11-year-olds inoculated. That day has arrived. PAGE A24

INTERNATIONAL A4-11

Ethiopian Leader Is Defiant

The prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, appealed to his soldiers to defend the capital "with our blood," even as Tigray rebels continued to advance. PAGE A6

`Mistake,' but `Not Negligence'

Videos showed the presence of at least one child in the area before a drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed 10 civilians, the Pentagon said. PAGE A8

U.S. Blacklists Spyware Firm

The Israel-based NSO Group was added to a list that blocks foreign companies from buying certain types of American technology without a license. PAGE A9

BUSINESS B1-8

Google Bid Risks Backlash

Three years ago, the company walked away from a Pentagon project after its employees objected to it. Now it's working on a new defense proposal. PAGE B1

Student Housing Furor

A company that pitches upscale off-

campus apartments has left tenants

and investors stewing.

PAGE B1

SPORTS B10-13

Atlanta's Favorite Son

With a championship, Freddie Freeman sealed his playing legacy. His personal legacy was never in doubt. PAGE B11

THURSDAY STYLES D1-6

Laughing at the Pain

Aida Rodriguez is trying to broaden

the way that Latinos are represented

in the world of comedy.

PAGE D4

Gucci's Hollywood Entrance

As anticipation grew for the "House of

Gucci" film, lace and lam? hit the Walk

of Fame. Fashion Review.

PAGE D2

ARTS C1-6

Evaluating Mark Zuckerberg

It's time to assess Facebook's founder not only as a corporate leader but also a cultural one, Amanda Hess says. PAGE C1

Female Filmmakers' Stories

Movies about men who make movies

are common, but women in film don't

often get such treatment.

PAGE C1

OPINION A22-23

Bret Stephens

PAGE A23

U(D54G1D)y+[!\!&!$!#

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download