The Biggest Non-Endorsements Of 2024 | EUROtoday

When The Washington Post introduced final week that its editorial board wouldn’t endorse Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump for president, the newspaper invited a flood of criticism — and greater than 250,000 cancellations from apparently irate subscribers.

It was maybe essentially the most controversial non-endorsement of the 2024 election cycle. But it was removed from the primary.

For months now, notable politicians, celebrities and establishments have been saying that they received’t again anybody for president this 12 months, at the very least not publicly. Since no one appears to trace non-endorsements, HuffPost has assembled this partial record of sideline sitters and their said rationales. (For a listing of precise endorsements, Wikipedia is a fairly good supply.)

Until this 12 months, the Post’s editorial board had made an endorsement in each presidential election for 3 a long time. The paper’s editorial web page editor authorized an endorsement of Harris that was being drafted earlier this month and reviewed by Post proprietor Jeff Bezos, NPR reported.

But CEO William Lewis introduced Friday that the paper can be “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” citing a Post coverage that was in place via the Richard Nixon period. He stated the transfer was “a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions — whom to vote for as the next president.”

Bezos defended the transfer in a Monday op-ed, with the billionaire saying that “endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election” however “create a perception of bias.”

The response from high-profile journalists, together with Post alums, has been brutal. Marty Baron, a former longtime govt editor, referred to as the paper’s resolution “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.” He predicted that Trump would take the non-endorsement as “an invitation to further intimidate” Bezos, hinting that the billionaire could have feared retribution from a doable Trump administration if the Post endorsed Harris.

Before Bezos infuriated Post readers, Los Angeles Times proprietor Patrick Soon-Shiong prompted his personal wave of cancellations by saying that Los Angeles’ paper of report would keep out of the presidential race.

Soon-Shiong stated final week that though he didn’t green-light an endorsement, he had allowed his paper’s editorial board to “draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate.”

“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision,” he wrote on X.

The LA Times reported Monday that it had acquired round 1,000 emails and letters concerning the resolution. “About 90% of them criticized the paper and its owner,” the story famous.

Prior to this 12 months, the Teamsters had endorsed each Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton, backing him in 1992 (and no one in 1996). But union President Sean O’Brien introduced final month that the group representing 1.3 million members can be sitting out the 2024 race, with member polling exhibiting robust assist for Trump among the many rank and file.

The resolution by the union’s govt board angered Harris supporters all through organized labor, particularly since Harris and different Democrats saved Teamster pension plans with no GOP assist. “That alone should be enough to cement a commitment from the IBT,” Jim Hoffa, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ former longtime president, advised HuffPost on the time.

Trump, who was hostile to unions all through his 2017-2021 presidential time period, has boasted concerning the non-endorsement. “Look, it was always automatic that Democrats get the Teamsters, and they said, ‘We won’t endorse the Democrats this year,’” the previous president stated at a New York marketing campaign cease. “So that was an honor for me.”

Former GOP Vice President Mike Pence’s resolution this 12 months to not endorse his outdated working mate didn’t come as a giant shock. After all, it was Trump who as soon as whipped up a crowd of rioters chanting “hang Mike Pence” whereas mounting a failed riot on the U.S. Capitol. As Pence was being whisked away to security on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump was calling him a coward for not overturning the 2020 presidential election outcomes.

“I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence stated final 12 months, months after Trump introduced his 2024 candidacy.

But that doesn’t imply Pence has thrown his assist behind the Democratic ticket. “I could never vote for Kamala Harris as president of the United States or Tim Walz as her running mate,” he stated at a conservative discussion board in August. “Period. Paragraph.”

Soon-to-retire Utah Sen. Mitt Romney isn’t taking a facet within the election, both. The former 2012 GOP presidential nominee has been knocking Trump for years, famously calling him a “phony” and a “fraud” in a withering takedown through the 2016 major contest. He has publicly stated greater than as soon as through the present marketing campaign that the GOP standard-bearer received’t be getting his vote.

“I’ve made it very clear that I don’t want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States,” he stated at a current University of Utah occasion.

Romney, nevertheless, has stopped in need of endorsing Harris. The average Republican urged that he needs to have a hand in some day rebuilding the GOP, and that throwing his weight behind Harris would make that tougher. But he has additionally acknowledged that he’s effectively out of step with what the Republican Party has turn into.

“My wing of the party is like a chicken wing, all right?” Romney stated within the spring. “It’s a little, tiny thing that doesn’t take the bird off the ground.”

Former Republican President George W. Bush hasn’t made an endorsement on this 12 months’s race. His workplace has stated Bush “retired from presidential politics years ago,” though he publicly backed GOP candidates John McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012.

Bush has bemoaned the Republican Party changing into “isolationist, protectionist and, to a certain extent, nativist” within the Trump period, however has held again from criticizing Trump by title.

Bush’s outdated working mate doesn’t share his sense of restraint. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has endorsed Harris and stated Trump “can never be trusted with power again.”

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney stated.

Bush’s daughter Barbara Pierce Bush has additionally endorsed Harris, telling People that she campaigned for the Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania over the weekend.

Dwayne Johnson, the actor and wrestler often known as The Rock, publicly backed Harris and working mate Joe Biden throughout their 2020 run for the White House, however he has determined to remain quiet this time round.

“It’s between me and the ballot box,” Johnson advised Fox News earlier this 12 months.

Johnson has been talked about as a possible candidate for top workplace. Last 12 months, he advised comic Trevor Noah that in 2022 he acquired a “visit from the parties” asking if he’d take into account working for president.

Credit to anybody who had this one on their endorsement-controversy bingo card.

Chappell Roan, the Missouri-born singer who rose to stardom prior to now 12 months, advised the Guardian in September that she wouldn’t be endorsing anybody for president. “There are so many things that I would want to change [in the government]. So I don’t feel pressured to endorse someone,” she stated. “There’s problems on both sides.”

Facing a backlash from progressive followers for her “both sides” comment, Roan later defined that she was voting for Harris however nonetheless wouldn’t endorse her for the presidency. “Obviously, fuck the policies of the right, but also fuck some of the policies on the left,” she stated on TikTok. Roan has been an outspoken critic of U.S. assist for Israel’s conflict in Gaza.

“I’m not going to settle for what the options that are in front of me. And you’re not going to make me feel bad for that,” she stated.