Washington Post will not endorse Harris or Trump in US election
WASHINGTON—The influential Washington Post newspaper, owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, announced Friday it will endorse neither Democrat Kamala Harris nor Republican Donald Trump in the US presidential election.
CEO William Lewis said this was a return “to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”
However, the Post editorial board has endorsed candidates over the last four decades—all of them Democrats—before deciding to stay on the sidelines in one of the most polarizing elections in US history.
Newspaper editorials have little of their once-powerful political heft. But the Post—whose slogan is “Democracy dies in darkness”—is one of a small number of traditional media outlets that still retains considerable influence among Washington’s elite.
Trump’s campaign quickly pounced, crowing that “Harris is so bad, The Washington Post decided to never endorse another presidential candidate again.”
The Washington Post Guild, which represents unionized staff at the newspaper, said it was “deeply concerned.”
Cancellations
“We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers,” a statement said.
US media reported that a senior Post figure, editor at large Robert Kagan, had resigned in protest.
The decision to sidestep controversy comes days after one of Trump’s most senior aides during his presidency claimed that the Republican had praised Hitler and was himself “fascist”—a characterization repeated by Harris in a CNN town hall event.
Speaking in Austin, Texas, Trump belied the claim first published by The Atlantic magazine and echoed by Harris. He said it came from “a general who got fired”. He added that “when you fire people for doing a bad job, they get a little bit angry.”
He said the family of a slain Texas soldier—Vanessa Guillen—came out to belie the claims of the “failing magazine” that came out with that story and other “lies.”
Los Angeles Times
The Post’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate follows a similar move by another of the big remaining US newspapers, the Los Angeles Times.
The owner of the Times blocked the editorial board from issuing an endorsement for Harris, said editorial editor Mariel Garza, who resigned in protest on Wednesday.
In a statement, The Washington Post’s Lewis wrote that the paper would not ever make presidential endorsements again, as had been the tradition in its earlier years.
“Our job at The Washington Post is to provide through the newsroom non-partisan news for all Americans, and thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds,” he said.
The Post has been endorsing Democratic candidates consistently as far back as the 1980s, saying the editorial board works separately to the news gathering operation.
The Washington Post’s former executive editor, Marty Baron, lashed out at the daily’s “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.”
For his part, Trump accused “fake news media” and the Democratic Party of being the “threats to democracy”. “They’ve weaponized the courts, the FBI to go after people,” he told supporters on Friday.
Baron said that Trump would see the Post’s decision “as an invitation to further intimidate” Bezos.
“Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage,” Baron wrote on X.
