Anti-trump newspapers could end up helping him
“A clear and present danger to our country.” “Beneath our national dignity.” These fiery denunciations sound like they come from Hillary Clinton attack ads, said David Bauder in the Associated Press, but they’re actually from “long-time Republican newspapers disavowing Donald Trump”. In recent weeks, a string of stalwart conservative papers have bucked tradition by endorsing either Clinton or Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, over the Republican nominee. It’s the first time The Cincinnati Enquirer has endorsed a Democrat in almost a century; for The Dallas Morning News, the first in more than 75 years. USA Today, which has never taken sides in a presidential race, has issued a Trump “anti-endorsement”, urging readers to shun a “dangerous demagogue”. The Atlantic magazine, which has made only two presidential endorsements in its 160-year history – for Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon B. Johnson – has come out for Clinton. With a month to go until the election, no major editorial board has yet endorsed Trump.
But do newspapers’ endorsements really matter any more? Voters don’t seem to think so, said Npr.org: in 2008, nearly 70% of Pew survey participants said that their local newspaper’s endorsement had no effect on whom they voted for. Besides, many of the recent anti-trump editorials have hardly been “ringing endorsements for Clinton”, said Cleve R. Wootson Jr. in The Washington Post. Nearly all of them have expressed reservations about the Democratic nominee. The bottom line is that Trump voters already distrust the media and disregard all criticism of their hero.
Actually, there is evidence that editorials can influence voters’ decisions, said Margaret Sullivan in the same paper, in cases “when the endorsements are unexpected”. Two recent studies showed that up to 2% of readers could shift positions in an election if the editorial in question marked a politically surprising shift – as when the Chicago Tribune, a historically conservative paper, backed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Some of the editorials could backfire, though, said Andrew Joyce on Fusion.net. Newspapers in North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire denounced Trump in editorials but endorsed Johnson. Polls consistently show Johnson eating into Clinton’s support in those battleground states, not Trump’s. So in the end, the “supposed principled stances” of those Republican newspapers to oppose Trump “might just help Donald Trump get elected”.