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The Des Moines Register has not endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders, but a new ad from his campaign that started running on Thursday in Iowa may lead viewers to think that it did.

The ad trumpets the endorsements Mr. Sanders has received: “From postal workers to nurses, he’s been endorsed for real change,” a female narrator says.

“Endorsed by Friends of the Earth Action,” a caption declares, using the group’s logo. Same for The Nation magazine: “You can trust Sanders because he doesn’t owe his political career to the financial overlords,” the magazine is quoted as declaring.

But sandwiched between The Nation’s endorsement and one from The Daily Nonpareil, the local newspaper in Council Bluffs, Iowa, is a quotation from the state’s largest newspaper. “The Des Moines Register calls him ‘a man of courage and principle,’” the narrator says.

That praise did not come in an endorsement of Mr. Sanders, however. It came in The Register’s editorial endorsing Mr. Sanders’s rival, Hillary Clinton.

The editorial did shower Mr. Sanders with praise, but it came down in favor of Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy – which even careful viewers would have no way of knowing.