N.Y. Daily News Will Not Endorse Either Presidential Candidate

Oct. 29, 1964 - The New York Daily News declined today to endorse either President Johnson or Senator Barry Goldwater for the Presidency.

The News thus became the only major New York newspaper that has not supported a candidate. All the others, the Herald Tribune, The Post, The World‐Telegram and Sun, The Journal‐American, and the Times, have endorsed President Johnson.

In an editorial in today’s editions, the Daily News said:

“With great regret we are unable to offer our readers a conscientious recommendation as to whom to vote for for President and Vice President next Tuesday.”

The News said that when Goldwater won the nomination in San Francisco last July, it had “bright hopes that the Arizonan would put on a skillful, high‐powered campaign which would draw many vital issues sharply between him and President Lyndon B. Johnson.”

“But,” the News continued, “the Goldwater campaign has been so clumsily conducted up to now and the Senator has made so many unfortunate remarks in public that one wonders how capable a President he would be.”

With regard to President Johnson, the News said:

“On the other hand, we wonder whether the country could stand four more years of Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House. And when we think of Senator Humphrey as being within a heartbeat of succeeding President Johnson, we — like Senator Goldwater — shudder and shake.”

The News, the nation’s largest newspaper with a daily circulation of more than 2,225,000, is listed in Editor and Publisher’s Yearbook as politically independent. However, it has traditionally supported Republican candidates.

The Daily News is controlled by the Chicago Tribune Company, a paper that has already endorsed Goldwater. Earlier yesterday, another paper controlled by The Tribune — Chicago’s American — also came out in favor of the election of Goldwater.

Only three newspapers that supported John F. Kennedy in 1960 have switched to Goldwater. They are the Opelika (Ala.) News, The Garden Grove (Calif.) News, and The Dublin (Ga.) Courier‐Herald.

Three Southern newspapers that were neutral four years ago — the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion‐Ledger, the Troy (Ala.) Messenger, and The Harlingen (Tex.) Valley Star — also declared for the Arizona Senator this year.

The Harlingen paper is one of the few dailies in Texas opposing Johnson, although one of the larger, the Dallas News, has adopted a neutral stand.

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