USA Today has become the latest news outlet to decline to endorse a presidential candidate, namely Kamala Harris, this election season.
The paper, the nation’s fourth largest, spoke to The Daily Beast on Monday and said that in lieu of an endorsement, they will provide “readers with the facts that matter and the trusted information they need to make informed decisions.”
USA Today endorsed Joe Biden for president in 2020 but does not see fit to endorse his vice president, the woman who replaced him suddenly at the top of the ticket in July, Kamala Harris.
The Washington Post and the LA Times, two super left-leaning papers, have also declined to endorse a presidential candidate. The New York Times endorsed Harris. Harris would have been the obvious choice for both of them. Both outlets have suffered high-profile resignations in the aftermath and the Post has lost a substantial number of subscribers.
In an email to The Daily Beast, USA spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton said “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.”
Anton said that none of the newspapers owned by Gannett, the newspaper conglomerate and publicly traded company that operates USA Today, will be endorsing a presidential candidate, though they are free to endorse local candidates.
Back in October 2020, the USA Today broke with their tradition of not endorsing candidates by endorsing Biden due to what they saw as the existential threat of a second term in office for Donald Trump. At the time, they wrote:
“Four years ago, the Editorial Board — an ideologically and demographically diverse group of journalists that is separate from the news staff and operates by consensus — broke with tradition and took sides in the presidential race for the first time since USA TODAY was founded in 1982. We urged readers not to vote for Donald Trump, calling the Republican nominee unfit for office because he lacked the ‘temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents.’ We stopped short, however, of an outright endorsement of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. This year, the Editorial Board unanimously supports the election of Joe Biden, who offers a shaken nation a harbor of calm and competence.”
This year, it appears that they are less concerned with not seeing a Trump presidency than they are with not going on the record as backing a Harris presidency.
