USA Today Urges Readers To Vote For Joe Biden In First-Ever Presidential Endorsement
Desperate times call for exceptional measures...
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Updated Oct 20, 2020, 01:14pm EDT More From Forbes
Topline
USA Today endorsed Joe Biden on Tuesday, joining the growing list of news publications that are breaking tradition and backing a presidential candidate for the first time this year.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden arrives[+][-] at the Queen Theater on October 19, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. According to the campaign, Biden is recording an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" that will air Sunday evening. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Key Facts
The endorsement was the paper's first presidential endorsement ever since being founded in 1982.
In 2016, the paper's editorial board urged its readers not to vote for Trump, but did not endorse a candidate.
This time around, the editorial board implores its readers to vote for Biden, writing the nation is "beset by disease, economic suffering, a racial reckoning and natural disasters fueled by a changing climate."
"The nation is dangerously off course," the board adds, arguing there is "little doubt" that Biden "would have handled the [Covid-19] crisis more capably."
The editorial board does not reflect the views of USA Today's news room, as the paper notes.
Crucial Quote
"We don't do this eagerly," editorial page editor Bill Sternberg wrote in a follow-up note explaining why the paper endorsed a candidate this year. "We hope we don't have to do it again, but it seems like one of those break-glass moments where there's a clear and present danger and there's a clear choice."
Key Background
USA Today is one of several news publications to back a presidential candidate for the first time ever this year, including multiple scientific publications—Scientific American, Lancet Oncology, New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature—that all endorsed Biden this year.
Tangent
Sternberg told Axios that in 2016 some of the "conservative members" of the editorial board "could not stomach taking that one extra step and going so far as to endorse Hillary Clinton."
Surprising Fact
In 2016, Trump received fewer endorsements than any presidential candidate in history, according to The Hill.
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Desperate times call for exceptional measures...
Better late than never. When it's all said and done, Biden will receive about 95% or more of the nation's newspaper editorial endorsements. This is an overwhelming rejection of Trump that the nation should heed.