Anatomy of a newspaper endorsement
We appreciate the continued feedback — positive and critical — on the editorial board’s candidate recommendations, and especially in the Harris County judge race. Each election, we put substantial time and thought into our recommendations because we know we’re the only group of nonpartisan journalists in the region interviewing candidates and providing voters with this vital tool.
That task is always fraught, considering the diversity of our readership and the deepening partisan divide in our community.
This year, we endorsed 39 Democrats, 23 Republicans and one Libertarian. Our recommendation of Republican Alexandra del Moral Mealer for county judge over incumbent Democrat Lina Hidalgo raised eyebrows, reader concerns and even a few creative conspiracy theories.
We’ll do our best to address some here:
Q: Did Chronicle upper management, newsroom editors or advertisers pressure the board to endorse Mealer?
A: No, the editorial board, which is entirely separate from the newsroom, based our decision on extensive reporting, interviews with the candidates and hours of debate.
Q: Why did your endorsement seem so tortured?
A: Because it was. Some races are easy to call. This one was difficult. So, rather than writing to win readers over, to aggressively convince readers, as we often do, we provided strengths and shortcomings for candidates, laid out the facts on crime, and walked readers through our thought process. We wanted to make sure that those who didn’t like our ultimate decision had the information they needed to make their own.
Q: Why did you base your whole decision on crime when crime is going down?
A: We didn’t. Critics who try to boil down our concerns with Hidalgo to one issue conveniently leave out the other parts of her record that gave us great heartburn. Among them: criminal indictment of three staff members, hiring someone with no experience running elections who then botched the primaries with delays and 10,000 uncounted mail-in ballots, shared responsibility for a county jail in crisis where inmates and workers are experiencing violence and inhumane conditions, and ineffective, partisan leadership that frayed relationships to the point that commissioners couldn’t, or wouldn’t, even pass a budget. Yes, crime also weighed heavily on our decision. Current crime trends are mixed and uncertain with the overall numbers still high. Our point is this: statistics matter and people do, too. We believe Hidalgo failed to adequately fund law enforcement, to respond to the concerns of victims’ families and to publicly call out judges for lenient bond decisions.
Q: Why not just decline to endorse?
A: Our general philosophy is: if voters have to vote, we have to endorse. Sitting out tough choices doesn’t help voters. Sometimes, we struggle to decide between two strong candidates, sometimes between two weaker candidates. One reason we write such thorough endorsements is to signal how confident we are with our pick.
Q: Given the continued influence of Trump’s Big Lie, why endorse a Republican at all?
A: When we say we’re nonpartisan, we mean it. We judge individual candidates individually, using a broad set of factors. To name a few: transparency, effectiveness, integrity, fitness for the particular district or office, and any serious allegations of wrongdoing. We believe democracy can only survive with (at least two) strong competing political parties. We routinely urge readers, perhaps quixotically, to look beyond party label and judge candidates on their experience and records. For instance, while some are pressuring voters to throw out all Democratic criminal district judges because of the decisions of a few, we took the time to discern which folks in the black robes fell short of expectations and which deserve another term. Likewise, while some are rejecting all Republicans because of the proliferation of extremist views promoted by Trump and his loyal contingent, we feel an obligation to delineate between those who are real existential threats and those who are not. We looked for smart candidates with sensible positions who pledge to work across the aisle to get things done for the people they represent. In Mealer’s case, our reporting did not bear out allegations of extremist beliefs. On the accusation that she’s an election-denier, for example, she told us clearly: “Trump lost.” Despite her campaign rhetoric, she came off as thoughtful, knowledgeable, committed to fighting crime and restoring less-partisan, competent governance.
Q: How can you endorse Mealer and then, weeks later, call on her to return campaign donations from farright activists?
A: Because we’re opinion journalists. Recommending a candidate doesn’t mean we’re joining a team and buying the T-shirt. It means we’ve made the best decision with the information we have. We respond to facts, even ones that may seem contradictory or inconvenient. In the case of Mealer’s campaign finance reports, we interviewed her about a few troubling donations and she insisted she’d never even spoken to the donors. They appear to be joining a broad wave of support from Republicans statewide who see the Harris County judge race as a symbolic trophy for a party struggling in Texas’ urban centers.
We stand by our recommendations. Each reader has a right to their own decision in the race but not to their own facts about how we reached ours.