The Los Angeles Times reportedly will not be endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump in the race for the White House.
Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong has blocked the newspaper from endorsing a candidate for president this year, Semafor reported.
Because the Times has endorsed a Democrat candidate in every presidential election since it endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 and reportedly planned to endorse Harris, the newspaper's decision is a blow to the former California U.S. senator.
Semafor reported the Times had planned to endorse Harris before Executive Editor Terry Tang told editorial board staff members earlier this month that the paper would not be endorsing a candidate in the presidential election – a decision that came from Soon-Shiong, a doctor who made his fortune in the healthcare industry.
A Times spokesperson told Semafor, "We do not comment on internal discussions or decisions about editorials or endorsements."
The Times last week published its electoral endorsements for the 2024 election.
"It's no exaggeration to say this may be the most consequential election in a generation," the newspaper began its list of endorsements. "And we're not just talking about the presidential race."
There was no other mention of the race between Trump and Harris.
At the bottom of its endorsements' page, the Times said: "The editorial board endorses selectively, choosing the most consequential races in which to make recommendations."
Soon-Shiong previously overruled the newspaper's editorial board in 2020, when the Times planned to endorse Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in the Democratic Party presidential primary. The owner said there would be no endorsement.
The Times did endorse Joe Biden in the 2020 general election.
The newspaper in recent years has gotten attention over several local endorsements of candidates supported by Soon-Shiong's progressive daughter. The newspaper has claimed there was no involvement from Nika Soon-Shiong in the endorsements.
The Times did not endorse presidential candidates from the mid-1970s until 2008. The hiatus stemmed from internal dissent over the decision to endorse Richard Nixon for reelection months after the Watergate break in, a decision publisher Otis Chandler said he later regretted.
Before that, the Times had a streak of GOP presidential endorsements dating back to the paper's founding in 1881.
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