Many responsible citizens who made the effort to vote in the primary election on Aug. 20 paid close attention to our candidate recommendations. It showed through in those down-ballot non-partisan races, where candidates’ party affiliations are not listed and can’t help voters make up their minds.
So they turn to a trusted source — us.
Steve Bousquet/Sun Sentinel
A yard sign for Broward Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips in Fort Lauderdale’s Rio Vista neighborhood lists her endorsements, including the Sun Sentinel. She won easily. (Steve Bousquet/Sun Sentinel)
All five victorious Broward County School Board candidates had this newspaper’s endorsement, and so did seven of eight successful Broward judicial candidates.
In Palm Beach County’s only contested judicial race, the candidate we endorsed got 38% of the vote, placing first in a three-way race, and is in position to win a runoff in November. That’s not a coincidence.
In both counties, endorsed candidates prominently featured the familiar Sun Sentinel logo on their yard signs and campaign literature.
As is always the case, some candidates won, even though we recommended their opponents. Good for them.
We don’t pick winners
Our goal is not to pick who we think will win the election.
After thorough review, we recommend who we believe is the best overall candidate in each race, keeping in mind our values of integrity, transparency, accessibility, a commitment to serving the public honorably and protecting the natural environment. In most cases, voters agreed with us.
We do our homework. That’s our job. We urge voters to do the same and make independent, well-informed decisions.
That brings us to Florida’s Nov. 5 general election ballot, which is much longer and more consequential, with vastly more races, from City Hall to the U.S. Capitol, along with six proposed amendments to the state Constitution — two of which, on abortion rights and recreational marijuana, are being closely watched nationally.
Unlike a primary, a general election has finality, with a much larger voter turnout. This is, no doubt, the most important election in all of our lifetimes. For the sake of our future, and of America’s, voters must get it right this time.
We have decided unavoidably to concentrate our limited resources on those state and local races that affect the greatest number of voters. Our parent company’s policy precludes us from endorsing candidates for President and U.S. Senate, but if you read our opinion pages, our preferences will be clear.
We will endorse candidates for three races for Congress (Districts 22, 23 and 25); two state Senate races (Districts 35 and 37); six races for the state House (Districts 90, 91, 94, 102, 103 and 105), four constitutional offices in Palm Beach (clerk of courts, sheriff, state attorney and supervisor of elections); one in Broward (sheriff); two Palm Beach School Board contests (Districts 1 and 5); a Palm Beach County court seat (Group 2); a Palm Beach County Commission seat (District 5); a Broward County Commission seat (District 1); two Broward referendum questions; four city offices in Fort Lauderdale, three in Hollywood and five in Pompano Beach, where all three cities will hold citywide mayoral elections.
We will also provide guidance on Amendments 1 through 6, the statewide ballot questions also dealing with partisan School Board elections, the homestead exemption, hunting and fishing and public financing of elections. We will also render our judgment on the two Florida Supreme Court justices facing their first merit retention votes.
Watch the candidates
We began holding online interviews with candidates a week ago. They will continue, with several each day, for the next three weeks. Watch our unedited interviews online. They will be embedded in our endorsement editorials.
We may issue recommendations in other city elections in Broward as resources and time allow.
Twenty-two of Broward’s 31 cities will hold municipal elections on Nov. 5. With many voters receiving mail ballots in a couple of weeks, the work of interviewing, evaluating and endorsing candidates in all of these municipal races would be logistically impossible.
It’s an old refrain, but Broward simply has too many cities, and most city elections that used to be held in March are now held in November.
If you vote in one of Broward’s medium or smaller cities holding elections, you’ll have to make your City Hall choices without our help. It’s an inevitable consequence of the economic impact of the decline in readership of regional daily papers like ours.
But we embrace this vital role enthusiastically, and it is why we appreciate your continued loyalty as readers so much. We can’t be everywhere, and it’s better to cover fewer races as best as we can.
To put this in perspective, many papers across the country no longer recommend candidates for any public office. We think that’s a mistake. We know how much this still matters.
As always, we invite and appreciate your feedback on our editorial endorsement policy — and everything else on our opinion pages.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.