The Most Controversial Non-Endorsements Of This 12 months’s Election

When The Washington Put up 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 surely was removed from the primary.

For months now, notable politicians, celebrities and establishments have been saying that they gained’t again anybody for president this 12 months, no less than not publicly. Since no person appears to trace non-endorsements, HuffPost has assembled this partial checklist of sideline sitters and their acknowledged rationales. (For an inventory of precise endorsements, Wikipedia is a reasonably good supply.)

Till this 12 months, the Put up’s editorial board had made an endorsement in each presidential election for 3 many years. The paper’s editorial web page editor authorised an endorsement of Harris that was being drafted earlier this month and reviewed by Put up proprietor Jeff Bezos, NPR reported.

However CEO William Lewis introduced Friday that the paper can be “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” citing a Put up coverage that was in place by 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 Put up alums, has been brutal. Marty Baron, a former longtime government editor, referred to as the paper’s determination “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 Put up endorsed Harris.

Earlier than Bezos infuriated Put up readers, Los Angeles Occasions proprietor Patrick Quickly-Shiong prompted his personal wave of cancellations by saying that Los Angeles’ paper of report would keep out of the presidential race.

Quickly-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 Occasions reported Monday that it had acquired round 1,000 emails and letters in regards to the determination. “About 90% of them criticized the paper and its owner,” the story famous.

Previous to this 12 months, the Teamsters had endorsed each Democratic presidential candidate since Invoice Clinton, backing him in 1992 (and no person in 1996). However 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 displaying sturdy help for Trump among the many rank and file.

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

Trump, who was hostile to unions all through his 2017-2021 presidential time period, has boasted in regards to 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 determination this 12 months to not endorse his previous working mate didn’t come as a giant shock. In spite of everything, it was Trump who as soon as whipped up a crowd of rioters chanting “hang Mike Pence” whereas mounting a failed rebel 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.

However that doesn’t imply Pence has thrown his help 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.”

Quickly-to-retire Utah Sen. Mitt Romney isn’t taking a facet within the election, both. The previous 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 gained’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 latest College of Utah occasion.

Romney, nonetheless, has stopped wanting endorsing Harris. The average Republican prompt that he needs to have a hand in some day rebuilding the GOP, and that throwing his weight behind Harris would make that tougher. However he has additionally acknowledged that he’s properly out of step with what the Republican Social gathering 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,” regardless that he publicly backed GOP candidates John McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012.

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

Bush’s previous 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 Folks that she campaigned for the Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania over the weekend.

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

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

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

Credit score 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, informed 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.”

Dealing with 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. help for Israel’s struggle 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.