Staff Reports
Vice President Kamala Harris seems to have found herself at the top of a rather exclusive guest list: the list of candidates not getting a warm endorsement for the upcoming 2024 presidential election. USA Today decided it would rather sit on the fence, choosing not to endorse either Harris or former President Donald Trump. This begs the question: how did an administration official manage to become the most un-endorseable candidate since the dawn of the republic?
Lark-Marie Antón, spokesperson for USA Today, indicated that the paper believes it is just dandy to let readers make their own choices. While one could argue that it sounds suspiciously like a dodge to avoid the scrutiny of endorsing someone with such a low favorability rating, it’s clear this is a clever way to take a shot at the Harris campaign. Remember, not too long ago, this was a publication that didn’t shy away from endorsing Joe Biden, while firmly declaring its collective disdain for Trump in 2016. Oh how the tables have turned since then!
USA Today just said it won’t endorse a presidential candidate.
That’s no surprise after yesterday’s article. 👇🏽
Listen. These publications will continue to smear Kamala Harris after she’s in office but it’s laughable that they can’t see just how irrelevant they’ve become. pic.twitter.com/JEcpnJSHWF
— Renee 🪷 (@PettyLupone) October 28, 2024
Interestingly, this non-endorsement trend doesn’t stop with USA Today. Several other major players in the media landscape, including Harris’s supposed hometown newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, have also opted to refrain from picking a side. The LA Times, which previously threw its weight behind other Democratic candidates like Biden, Obama, and Clinton, has now decided that supporting a candidate isn’t worth the risk of losing half of its readership. The backpedaling is both amusing and telling of Harris’s unpopularity and the Democratic establishment’s growing nervousness as the election looms.
The Washington Post, in an apparent act of self-preservation, has also decided to distance itself from the endorsement game altogether. This decision implies that their past love affairs with Democratic candidates may have gone sour enough to warrant a full retreat into editorial neutrality. In a world where political endorsements are supposed to mean something, perhaps they’ve realized that backing Harris would invite a firestorm of criticism—something they clearly want to avoid as they shift back to “neutral” reporting.
Not to be overlooked, the Teamsters Union has also joined the chorus of non-fans, indicating a staggering 60 percent of its members lean toward Trump instead of Harris, who garners just 34 percent support. With such statistics making it clear that even traditional Democratic strongholds are losing faith in Harris, it becomes apparent that her campaign is one of those “hold my beer” situations where nobody really knows how it’s going to pan out, but you can bet it’ll be entertaining to watch.
So here we are, with prominent publications and unions taking a hard pass on Harris. Instead of rallying support, all she’s managed to do is send various organizations into personal retreat mode, hoping to keep their distance from a candidate that even many on her own side have second-guessed. The more one looks into the state of her campaign, the clearer it becomes that the only person her endorsements are resonating with is… well, no one!
