The Detroit News endorsed Gary Johnson, breaking a long chain of endorsing the Republican nominee. | Getty Detroit News endorses Johnson over Trump, Clinton

Add the Detroit News to the list of newspapers straying in 2016 from a long history of endorsing Republican candidates for president.

But instead of backing Hillary Clinton — as did the Dallas Morning News, Arizona Republic and Cincinnati Enquirer — the Detroit News on Thursday endorsed Libertarian Gary Johnson for president.


“We recognize the Libertarian candidate is the longest of long shots with an electorate that has been conditioned to believe only Republicans and Democrats can win major offices,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote in its endorsement, published Thursday. “But this is an endorsement of conscience, reflecting our confidence that Johnson would be a competent and capable president and an honorable one.”

It is the first time in the newspaper’s 143-year history that it has endorsed anyone other than the Republican nominee for president. The editorial’s writers said that “We abandon that long and estimable tradition this year for one reason: Donald J. Trump.”

“The 2016 nominee offered by the Republican Party rubs hard against the editorial board’s values as conservatives and Americans,” it read. “Donald Trump is unprincipled, unstable and quite possibly dangerous. He can not be president.”

Its authors were hardly kinder to Democrat Hillary Clinton, who the newspaper admitted “has an impressive resume and a presidential bearing,” but lacks the character to earn its endorsement. “Her career-long struggles with honesty and ethics and calculating, self-serving approach to politics trouble us deeply,” the newspaper wrote.

The editorial board said Johnson is the candidate whose values most closely align with its own, highlighting his willingness to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, an agreement both major-party candidates oppose. It praised the public service record of both Johnson, a former New Mexico governor, and his running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and called it encouraging that the two have pledged to govern as a team.

The endorsement made no mention of Johnson’s foreign policy gaffes, most notably his inability to recognize the Syrian city of Aleppo during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” The city is the epicenter of that nation’s humanitarian crisis, and asked what he would do about it, Johnson replied “what is Aleppo?” More recently, Johnson was unable to name a single foreign leader he admires during an MSNBC town hall, which the former governor labeled another “Aleppo moment.”

But the Detroit News said that while it was apprehensive about Johnson’s adherence to “Libertarian non-interventionism,” the former governor “understands America’s position in the world, and we are certain that once the weight of leadership is on his shoulders, he will meet that responsibility.”

“We anticipate our decision not to support either of the major party candidates will bring charges that we are throwing away our endorsement. Our contention is that an endorsement based on conscience is never wasted,” the editorial's authors wrote. “We urge readers who share our disillusionment with the presidential ballot and disdain for the GOP nominee to join us in casting a conscience vote for Gary Johnson.”