The Post-Dispatch Editorial Board has long advised readers on how they might wisely use that precious commodity, their vote. Editorial endorsements of political candidates have been election-year staples on this page, as on other editorial pages throughout America, for generations.
But like so many long-held traditions in our industry, this one is changing.
announced in August it will no longer endorse in New York elections. It鈥檚 part of an in the past few years of scaling back or eliminating candidate endorsements 鈥 a trend embraced by hundreds of newspapers (or their corporate chains) including the Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald, Baltimore Sun and New York Daily News.
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Our Editorial Board this year considered shelving the endorsement process altogether because of changes in both our industry and in America鈥檚 political landscape. In the end, we decided to press ahead this election season with a truncated endorsement schedule that started recently and will continue in the coming days.
As for what the next election cycle holds, that鈥檚 a discussion worth having, with the readers and with the candidates.
With such a deeply divided electorate, and with so many voters鈥 views virtually immovable these days, newspaper endorsements arguably no longer serve the primary function they once did of helping voters choose candidates. Today, on a range of the most important issues that define those candidates, most minds are already made up.
It wasn鈥檛 always like this. There was a time, not that long ago, when America鈥檚 political environment teemed with such exotic creatures as pro-choice Republicans, anti-tax Democrats and ticket-splitting voters. But those species are almost entirely extinct today, according to polling and recent elections.
Data from shows that the number of voters supporting presidential and congressional candidates from different parties 鈥 something more than 40% of voters did as late as the 1980s 鈥 has been in the low single-digit percentages in recent elections. Pew Research Center reports that the level of among Republicans and Democrats toward the other party has risen from under 20% in the 1990s to more than 50% (in both parties) today. As Thanksgiving approaches, countless family gatherings will demonstrate that data with heated arguments or tense silence.
While this page strives to present issues fairly in its editorials, they are by definition opinion pieces, meant to promote and defend specific positions. They reflect the opinions of current Editorial Board members, but are broadly in keeping with core principles this page has staked out for decades. Among them: protection of civil rights, voting rights and reproductive rights; equity in taxation; adequate public funding for public services; reasonable restrictions on firearms.
Candidates鈥 positions on those and other issues are the primary drivers of our editorial endorsement decisions 鈥 and this is where it gets tricky in this hyper-polarized atmosphere.
The almost complete lack of overlap between Democratic and Republican candidates on most top issues today means most and possibly all of our endorsements are logically going to end up going to candidates from the party that is most aligned with our long-held policy principles 鈥 yes, the Democrats. This despite what, believe it or not, has been our constant effort to find something, anything, on which to base a more balanced roster of endorsees.
This page has endorsed a few Republicans in recent years, including county-level candidates and Missouri and Illinois congressional incumbents. In 2022, we declined to endorse either of the candidates for Missouri鈥檚 1st Congressional District because we found the incumbent Democrat as unacceptable as her Republican challenger. But as both parties retreat further into their ideological corners, opportunities for endorsement crossover become increasingly rare.
Disagreement with our principles on one or some of those issues isn鈥檛 in itself disqualifying for our endorsement. But under what strained logic does any editorial board issue an endorsement for a candidate who is on the other side of virtually every issue on which it has staked a position, while rejecting the candidate who is supportive of most or all of those stances?
That is the dynamic that we (and, we can assume, our counterparts on more conservative editorial boards) face in these sharply divided times.
To readers who wonder what is even the point anymore of endorsing specific candidates in light of all this 鈥 it鈥檚 a good question. The New York Times didn鈥檛 explain to its readers why it is scaling back its endorsements. This is our explanation for our own abbreviated endorsement schedule this year, highlighting a few key races but otherwise focusing mainly on issues rather than individuals.
Some caveats: Ballot measures, nonpartisan local races and some other areas of politics remain less hyper-polarized than the usual 鈥淩 vs. D鈥 contests. Referendums in particular are often more complicated and less broadly understood by the public. That makes editorial recommendations potentially more useful in those instances.
Also, just because we鈥檙e issuing endorsements in fewer races doesn鈥檛 mean candidates鈥 supporters can鈥檛 weigh in on our pages, via letters to the editor and contributed op-eds. The most valuable aspect of this or any editorial section is its role as a forum for a full range of public opinion, including opinions on who should hold elective office.
Even as we welcome views in opposition to our editorial stances, we still intend to fiercely argue our positions on the issues that face our readers. But going forward, we will spend less space giving voters advice on specific candidate choices 鈥 and more on promoting open debate of those issues.