USA Today, one of the United States’ top-circulation newspapers, has announced it will not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the upcoming 2024 presidential election. This decision aligns the publication with The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, which have also opted to forgo presidential endorsements this election cycle.
In previous presidential elections, USA Today made their preferred candidate known, notably opposing former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. However, as reported by the Daily Beast, the newspaper’s editorial board has decided to have its editors focus on local elections:
A spokesperson for the paper told the Daily Beast on Monday that it will instead focus on providing “readers with the facts that matter and the trusted information they need to make informed decisions.”
That’s a stark difference from four years ago when USA Today broke with decades-old tradition to endorse Joe Biden for president. That endorsement claimed Donald Trump wasn’t a capable leader and that the U.S. was “dangerously off course.”
USA Today’s editorial board wrote that it decided to endorse back then—for the first time since 1982—because the 2020 election was was an “extraordinary moment” in history that required an “extraordinary response” from the paper.
“Biden is a worthy antidote to Trump’s unbounded narcissism and chronic chaos,” the paper told its readers.
In an email, USA Today spokesperson Lark-Marie Antón explained further the paper’s rationale for avoiding the presidential election.
“Why are we doing this? Because we believe America’s future is decided locally—one race at a time. And with more than 200 publications across the nation, our public service is to provide readers with the facts that matter and the trusted information they need to make informed decisions.”
According to 2023 circulation data, USA Today ranks fifth in print readership with 132,640 subscribers and holds the fourth-largest digital audience among U.S. newspapers, reaching two million online subscribers.
Owned by Gannett Co., Inc., USA Today is part of a prominent American media conglomerate based in McLean, Virginia, which manages an extensive portfolio of newspapers and digital outlets nationwide—including the The Arizona Republic, the Detroit Free Press and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
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I miss the days when the media was fair, honest, and unbiased. It would be great to go back to that. We can make up our own minds if given honest facts.
That being said, not endorsing Harris is actually an endorsement for Trump. Not even the liberal papers think she can handle the Presidency.
As an independent voter, I’m voting all Republican. Our nation has gone downhill since Biden/Harris took office.
The communist Democrat party is the culmination of Eisenhower outlawing the American Communist party and them (the communists) making the decision to go into the Democrat party because they concluded democrats were softheaded enough and they would be an easy target to take over. I guess they were right.