The upcoming New York City mayoral race will be the first in 120 years without an endorsement from the New York Times.
The newspaper on Aug. 12 reported that its editorial board, which consists of opinion journalists and operates separately from the paper’s newsroom, will stop endorsing candidates in New York state and local elections.
The change “will be immediate,” according to the report. Specifically, this means that the editorial board will not “take a stance in Senate, congressional or state legislative races in New York this fall, or in next year’s New York City elections,” which includes New York Mayor Eric Adams’ reelection bid.
“While elections everywhere remain critical to the lives and experiences of our audience, the editorial board is ceasing the endorsement process for New York elections,” Kathleen Kingsbury, the Times’ opinion editor who oversees the editorial board, said in a statement to news outlets following the report.
“We remain a journalistic institution rooted in New York City, both historically, today and in the future,” Kingsbury added. She did not explain the reason behind the change or whether it was a unanimous decision among editorial board members, but she said the paper’s opinion section “will continue to offer perspective on the races, candidates, and issues at stake.”
“As the institutional voice of The Times, the editorial board serves our mission to help our global audience understand the world by providing a consistent, independent view of the world based on time-tested institutional values,” she said.
The board will offer its endorsement in presidential elections, as it has since its founding in 1896. It will also endorse political candidates in races outside of the Empire State.
Some of the paper’s former associates have taken to social media to express frustration over the decision to end local endorsements.
Others questioned why the Times maintains its less influential endorsements for White House races, all of which have gone to Democrats since John F. Kennedy.
The Times has long been known for its pull in New York politics. In 2022, the paper’s helpful endorsement was credited for the victory of Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) in a crowded primary in a deep-blue district that featured an incumbent member of Congress, a former member of Congress, two members of the State Assembly, and a member of the City Council.
However, the Times’ editorial board isn’t always a kingmaker. For instance, Adams won the 2021 mayoral election without its endorsement.
With the latest policy shift, the Times now joins major national newspapers that have scaled back on political endorsements in recent years.
In 2020, McClatchy ordered the editorial boards of its 30 papers not to make a presidential endorsement unless they interview presidential candidates of both Democratic and Republican parties—an option not feasible for local or regional papers such as the Sacramento Bee.
Alden Global Capital, which controls more than 200 papers including the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald, and Orlando Sentinel, announced in 2022 a refrain from endorsing candidates for national and state offices.
The media group said its readers often found themselves “confused, especially online, about the differences between news stories, opinion pieces, and editorials.”
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has not endorsed presidential candidates for almost a century. Its most recent endorsement went to Herbert Hoover in 1928.
