Introducing the Presidential Endorsement Tracker

It's the time of year when newspaper endorsements of the presidential candidates start coming in. We're keeping track of who's backing President Obama and Mitt Romney here. In the chart below, the name of the endorsing newspaper is in the first column, the guy it endorsed in the second, a couple sentences from each endorsement, in the third, and where possible, we've noted whether these newspapers endorsed Republicans or Democrats in previous three elections.

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Aside from local races, most voters say newspaper endorsements don't change their minds. And some papers seem to always endorse one party or the other. So why keep track of newspaper endorsements? They reflect local opinion. As you can see from the chart, in 2008 Obama won a few newspaper endorsements that had traditionally endorsed Republicans. This year, a few papers who backed Obama in 2008 are switching back to the Republican ticket and backing Romney. And the way the newspapers explain their endorsements are interesting, too, because you can see which campaign messages are resonating.

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