WaPo and LA Times give no endorsement to Kamala
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Typically, when it comes to federal elections, endorsements don’t make or break a candidate’s chances when it comes to the voters. Endorsements are a big deal when it comes to local elections, but in bigger elections most voters pretty much know who they are voting for from the start. This is especially true in presidential elections. Last minute changes of minds or determining who to vote for based on endorsements just don’t exist when it comes to voting for President. Lefties vote for Democrats, and conservatives vote for Republicans, and those in the middle still lean one way or the other. Most of the time its about willingness to vote for one’s party’s candidate. If a Republican doesn’t like their GOP candidate, in another words, there is no danger they will suddenly bolt to the Democratic Party, and the same tends to be true on the other side. However, if a member of a party doesn’t like their candidate, they may simply refuse to vote at all, which not only takes away a vote for that candidate, but also the candidates down-ballot. So, the key is not necessarily flipping voters as much as it is getting one’s base to vote in the first place. Bad candidates push voters away, and lose elections as a result.
That all said, Donald Trump has been testing the tendency I just described. More so than ever before (even more so than in Reagan’s election), Democrats are abandoning their party and are switching sides. So, the “people don’t ever bolt to the other side” narrative is not necessarily as true as it usually is in this election.
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