USA Today has become the third major American outlet to announce it will neither endorse Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump for president, as the November 5 election approaches. In 2020, the paper endorsed the current leader, Democrat Joe Biden.
The paper will instead focus on providing “readers with the facts that matter and the trusted information they need to make informed decisions,” a spokesman told the Daily Beast on Monday.
In 2020, USA Today – which has around 130,000 print subscribers and millions more online – endorsed Biden over then-President Donald Trump, arguing that the Democrat offered “a shaken nation a harbor of calm and competence” and is “well positioned to repair the wreckage” that Trump allegedly made of the government during his tenure.
In refusing to take a side this year, USA Today followed the example of the Washington Post and the LA Times. The Post – which has endorsed candidates for nearly 40 years and famously introduced the slogan ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ after Trump’s election in 2016 – argued that the move was due to a desire to “return to our roots.”
The newspaper’s owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, called the decision “principled,” arguing that “presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election” but rather “create a perception of bias.”
The owner of the LA Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, refused the editorial board’s proposal to back Democratic Party candidate Harris, saying the decision to not make a recommendation would be less divisive in a tumultuous election year. This prompted the resignation of three members of the editorial board.
The New York Times, however, which endorsed Biden in 2020 and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, stood its ground. In September, its editorial board endorsed Harris, calling her “the only patriotic choice for president,” while arguing that Trump “is not fit to be president.”