The Economist, the British weekly international news magazine, endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in an editorial published online Saturday. It also urged people not split their ticket but to deliver the Democrats a majority in Congress as well.
“The choice is not hard. The campaign has provided daily evidence that Mr Trump would be a terrible president,” the unsigned editorial said. It said that Clinton would be “better suited to cope with the awful, broken state of Washington politics than her critics will admit.”
The editorial said that the best argument for Trump was that “his candidacy is a symptom of the popular desire for a political revival” but that it would be better to have a candidate like Clinton who has “campaigned for an open, optimistic country.”
The Economist added that the GOP deserved to lose in the Congress because that “would increase the chances of a Republican Party reformation that both the party and the United States need.”
It concluded: “Hence our vote goes to both Mrs Clinton and her party. Partly because she is not Mr Trump, but also in the hope she can show that ordinary politics works for ordinary people—the sort of renewal that American democracy requires.”
The Economist typically leans Democratic in its presidential endorsements, having backed Barack Obama twice and John Kerry in 2004. It endorsed George W. Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in 1996.
