One of New York’s most influential and traditionally Democratic media organizations pulled a stunner Sunday when it reversed its 2008 endorsement of Barack Obama to join the New York Post in endorsing Mitt Romney.

“Four years ago, the Daily News endorsed Obama, seeing a historic figure whose intelligence, political skills and empathy with common folk positioned him to build on the small practical experience he would bring to the world’s toughest job,” the endorsement in part states. “We valued Obama’s pledge to govern with bold pragmatism and bipartisanship. The hopes of those days went unfulfilled.”

The endorsement also ticks off a list of reasons for why the daily tabloid is backing Romney in 2012 – including smaller paychecks, fewer jobs and higher subway fares and gasoline prices.

“America’s heart, soul, brains and muscle -- the middle- and working-class people who make this nation great -- have been beset for too long by sapping economic decline,” the editorial continues. “So, too, (have) New York breadwinners and families.”

Beyond the rhetoric, the paper backs up its decision with a salvo of numbers after the 2008 financial crisis – including a 7.9 percent national jobless rate and nine million fewer jobs.

The paper also points out the hometown crowd, with some of the most well-educated and well-paid residents in the country not spared.

The median household income for a New York family dropped by $54 a week over that period, the paper also points out.

The Daily News joins nearly a dozen other major U.S. newspapers in switching endorsements from Obama to Romney, according to the University of California, Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project.

Only one newspaper, The San Antonio Express-News, which endorsed the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain, has switched to endorsing Obama, according the survey.

The 11 papers, according the study, that also switched to Romney are:

The New York Daily News

Long Island Newsday

Houston Chronicle

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Orlando Sentinel

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

Nashville Tennessean

Des Moines Register

Illinois Daily Herald

Los Angeles Daily News

Press-Telegram -- Long Beach, Calif.