Today’s Entry: @brianmuddradio Brian, I was looking for major Florida newspapers who endorsed DeSantis and could not find one! Are they all that delusional and out of touch? A bunch of elitist fish wrappers IMHO out of touch with Florida voters.
Bottom Line: Your observation is a good one. Based on the outcome of numerous elections in Florida, most especially the historic margin of victory by Governor DeSantis, it's clear the musings of Florida’s major newspapers held no relevance in the outcome of the highest profile races in our state. Here are Florida’s five largest newspapers by way of paid circulation/subscribers:
- Tampa Bay Times: 179,478
- Orlando Sentinel: 146,597
- Palm Beach Post: 139,876
- Sun Sentinel: 125,667
- The Miami Herald: 82,873
Breaking this down is instructive in multiple ways. First, as an exercise as to the paid reach of these entities, which is probably surprising to some. For example, how many people had the Tampa Bay Times as the leader in Florida via paid subscribers? Or that the Miami Herald was fifth for that matter? But the other is just how few people, relative to the populations that these publications service, still pay for them. That’s a huge piece of the puzzle in this conversation that I’ll come back around to, but first a look at the endorsements made by each of them.
- The Tampa Bay Times: Charlie Crist, whom they called “a man of decency”, while referring to Governor DeSantis as “a bully”
- Palm Beach Post: Charlie Crist, who was stated to have used the “levers of state government” for good unlike the current governor according to their analysis
- The Miami Hearld: Charlie Crist, after suggesting that Governor DeSantis’ Florida is “a place of meanness” (I hold out the possibility that the Miami Herald editorial board is now comprised of a woke 23-year-old social justice warrior fresh out of college. & btw, with content like that, is it any surprise that the Herald is a distant fifth in paid subscribers?)
Notably, the Orlando and Sun Sentinel abstained from issuing endorsements for governor or US Senate for the first time this cycle. Now, it’s far from the first time all of these papers endorsed a losing candidate for governor. They all endorsed Tallahassee’s favorite bisexual criminal, Andrew Gillum, in 2018. In fact, not even one of them has endorsed a winner since 2006 – thus their relevance and impact in Florida’s gubernatorial races has been negligible for 16 or so years at a minimum. But until now, there was a secondary argument these entities could lean on. Even if they didn’t pick winners, they were representative of the communities they’re designed to service. All five counties where these publications are located have long been blue counties. Well, not only did they pick a loser once again, but they obviously were also significantly out of sync with their communities as well.
Of the three leading newspapers to endorse, all counties they service broke for Governor DeSantis. DeSantis won Miami-Dade by 11%, Hillsborough by 9% and Palm Beach County by three points. Somewhat ironically, given that the Sentinel opted not to endorse, their two home counties Broward and Orange, were two of only five in Florida which broke for Crist this time around. It’s yet more evidence of the lack of relevance of their endorsements in statewide races. But about their relevance generally. That’s probably the biggest story of all. Based on total households in each county, here’s the reach of the three papers which endorsed:
- Hillsborough: 29% (Tampa Bay Times)
- Miami-Dade: 7.6% (Miami Herald)
- Palm Beach: 19.6% (Palm Beach Post)
Now if we were to adjust for voters and not just households, those numbers would drop to just about a third of those levels – meaning only single digit percentages of voters in each of these counties pay to read these publications and are thus potentially persuaded by them. It’s hard to know if the reason their endorsements don’t seem to matter is a byproduct of a lack of reach or a lack of relevance of the opinions of these publications (likely a combination of both), but to your point – yes, it’s evident they’re significantly out of lock step with their communities.
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