Final newspaper endorsement count: Clinton 57, Trump 2

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has received fewer endorsements from the editorial boards of the nation’s largest newspapers than any major-party presidential candidate in history.

{mosads}Among the top 100 largest newspapers in America, just two — the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville — endorsed Trump. The Review-Journal is owned by Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who has spent millions trying to elect Trump.

“Donald Trump, despite all of his faults, is best suited to blow up the inbred corruption of the Washington-New York elites,” the Times-Union wrote in a Sunday editorial.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has received endorsements from 57 newspaper editorial boards across the country, including papers such as the Dallas Morning News, the Arizona Republic and the San Diego Union-Tribune, conservative bastions that have almost always backed Republicans.

Four newspapers have taken the unusual step of explicitly advising readers to vote against Trump, even if they cannot bring themselves to recommend Clinton.

Trump’s “reckless ignorance is more informed by disturbing Internet conspiracy theories than evidence, wisdom or reason,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote this weekend. Clinton “suffers from an inflated sense of entitlement and a well-earned lack of trust.”

But, the paper concluded: “Job One: Reject Trump.”

USA Today, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram and Salt Lake City’s Deseret News all advised votes against the Republican presidential nominee.

The rejection of Trump is even more lopsided than the 1972 presidential contest, when the vast majority of papers backed Richard Nixon’s reelection bid. Only 7 percent of papers that endorsed that year picked George McGovern, the Democratic nominee. This year, only 3 percent of papers are backing Trump.

Even Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson has had more success with editorial boards than Trump. This weekend, the Charleston Post & Courier became the fourth paper to back Johnson.

“No, Mr. Johnson won’t win the White House Tuesday. But if he gains a substantial vote total, that could help spark the liberation of our politics from the two-party monopoly now failing Americans,” the paper wrote.