Bernie Sanders has missed out on the Des Moines Register's endorsement in two consecutive election cycles despite a late surge in Iowa ahead of the Feb. 3 kickoff caucuses.

The newspaper announced late Saturday its editorial board was backing Elizabeth Warren, 70, in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, taking a dig at the Vermont senator, 78, in the process.

"With Warren, the Oval Office will be occupied by someone who has made rebuilding the middle class her life’s work," the board wrote of the Massachusetts senator.

The outlet, however, qualified its endorsement.

"Some of her ideas for 'big, structural change' go too far. This board could not endorse the wholesale overhaul of corporate governance or cumulative levels of taxation she proposes. While the board has long supported single-payer health insurance, it believes a gradual transition is the more realistic approach. But Warren is pushing in the right direction," it said.

The New York Times this week broke with precedent and declined to pick one candidate to back. Instead, the newspaper chose moderately center-left Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, 59, and liberal firebrand Warren, overlooking the two front-runners in the race: former Vice President Joe Biden, 77, and Sanders, 78.

Yet Biden and Sanders may consider themselves lucky. Democratic Des Moines Register endorsees have a dismal record when it comes to winning the state's caucuses and clinching the party's nomination.

In 1988, the newspaper backed then-Illinois Sen. Paul Simon before the horn-rimmed glasses and bow-tie-wearing lawmaker lost in Iowa to Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt. Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis claimed the Democratic nomination that year.

Similarly, retired professional basketball player and New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley earned the outlet's support in 2000 before former Vice President Al Gore secured the most delegates in Iowa and the party's nod. Prior to admitting he had a love child with a staffer in the 2008 cycle, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards had the same experience with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

Hillary Clinton was also endorsed by the Des Moines Register in 2008 and 2016. While she emerged victorious from the caucuses and became the party's standard-bearer in 2016 over Sanders, she lost both honors to future President Barack Obama in 2008.

With a little more than a week before the opening caucuses, less than 1 percentage point separates Biden and Sanders in Iowa, according to polling averages compiled by RealClearPolitics.

Yet in a slew of recent polls fielded in the state, the former Vermont congressman and mayor of Burlington has demonstrated leads on the rest of the White House hopefuls.

Earlier in January, he had a narrow advantage of 3 percentage points over closest rival Warren in the Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll, considered to the gold-standard survey in Iowa. Then, on Saturday morning, the New York Times/Siena College poll had him at 7 percentage points ahead of second-most popular candidate former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, which was outside the margin of error.