NEW HAMPSHIRE — It's go-time for newspapers looking to endorse candidates in the 2020 presidential election. On Monday, The Union Leader in New Hampshire endorsed Senator Amy Klobuchar, while Senator Elizabeth Warren was endorsed by The Des Moines Register in Iowa over the weekend.
These endorsements are common, but, in 2020, do they actually help the candidates?
“I really think it speaks to the kind of campaign she's running,” said Rich Sigel, a Klobuchar supporter of the candidate’s endorsement from New Hampshire’s largest paper. “And it's her central message about how we need to bring people together.”
Arguably, any endorsement is better than no endorsement, but The Union Leader is a shadow of its former self; its circulation is down and, physically, it’s been diminished to a portion of its old building. Plus, the paper never carried much weight with many Democratic voters, says Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire.
“It has a long history as a conservative newspaper with a conservative editorial page, ideology and outlook,” Scala said.
While you wouldn’t expect The Union Leader endorsement to influence Democrats in New Hampshire, an endorsement from Iowa’s largest newspaper does seem to matter, historically. That’s a trend Warren hopes will hold.
In the past, a nod from The Des Moines Register seems to have helped boost final Iowa caucus vote totals. Bill Bradley, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton all finished better than polls predicted after gaining Register support.
“That's a big newspaper in Iowa,” Scala said. “There's reason you might get a bit of a bump out of that endorsement, maybe a couple of points, which would be quite a lot.”
Warren supporter Terie Norelli, a former Speaker of the New Hampshire House, says the endorsement for Warren is sweet, but the real key to victory may be her superior ground game in the early states.
“I think you ask people from many different campaigns and they will tell you that she has the single best organization in this state,” Norelli said.
Klobuchar also picked up the endorsement of the Keene Sentinel on Monday.