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Do newspaper endorsements matter?

Here’s a chart SFGate posted before Tuesday’s election showing the endorsements made by 10 newspapers. We added the line at the bottom showing the outcome of the election. Not one of the papers’ recommendations matched the outcome at the polls.

San Francisco’s Bay Guardian and two southern California papers agreed with the voters in rejecting 1A-1E, but those papers recommended “no” votes on 1F, which will stop pay raises for lawmakers in deficit years.

Prop 1A, which would have extended sales, income and car tax increases, failed 53-47 in San Francisco, despite the Chronicle’s endorsement of it. It also failed 54-46 in Santa Clara County where the Mercury News ran a number of editorials urging people to support it.

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