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Union Leader Breaks Trend, Endorses Biden For President

October 26, 2020

The New Hampshire Union Leader hadn’t endorsed a Democrat for president in its more than 100-year history, but that changed this year.

The historically right-leaning daily newspaper typically endorses Republicans, but it endorsed Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson for president in 2016. Now it has gone over to the other side, endorsing Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

“We were hopeful with Trump’s win that he might change, that the weight and responsibility of the Oval Office might mold a more respectful and presidential man,” the editorial states. “We have watched with the rest of the world as the mantle of the presidency has done very little to change Trump while the country and world have changed significantly.”

Trump and the newspaper’s publisher got into a public spat in December 2015 after the publisher attacked Trump in a front-page column. Trump later claimed in an interview that the publisher went after Trump because he declined to participate in a debate sponsored by the newspaper, calling the publisher “a real lowlife.”

The Union Leader‘s endorsement of Biden acknowledges that President Trump has had accomplishments.

“President Trump is not always 100 percent wrong, but he is 100 percent wrong for America. Trump has many admirable accomplishments from his first term in office. We can find much common ground with Trump supporters, including judicial appointments, tax policy, support for gun rights, even inroads to Middle East peace. Trump has been able to accomplish this despite many in the media and Congress working to stop him at every opportunity,” the Union Leader’s editorial states.

The editorial expresses disagreement with Biden on guns, cops, the Green New Deal, and his muted response to his son Hunter Biden’s overseas business deals. But it praises Biden as “a caring, compassionate and professional public servant” who can “bring people together and right the ship of state.”


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