B

y now, all of you should 
have received your 
at-home ballots in the 
mail for the upcoming election. 
Whether you are voting by mail 
or planning a 
masked, socially 
distanced in-per-
son trip to the 
polls on Nov. 3, 
we at the JN have 
been busy over 
the last few weeks 
preparing our 
coverage so that you are pre-
pared to mark your ballots.
Typically, in an election year, 
the JN will either send candi-
dates a written questionnaire 
of their stance on the issues, or 
conduct a sit-down interview 
in our offices. This year, with 
in-person meetings off the 
table, our editorial team still 
pushed for face-to-face inter-
views, but we have conducted 
these interviews over Zoom.
We focused our questioning 
on issues of particular impor-
tance to the local Jewish commu-
nity, including rising antisemi-
tism, support for Israel, the state 
and federal responses to the 
COVID-19 pandemic, health-
care, the local economy and race 
relations. Incumbents were asked 
about their past records and 

accomplishments. We then edit-
ed the transcripts for length and 
clarity in order to present their 
views fairly and accurately.
In all, we have interviewed 
18 different candidates running 
in a total of 13 different races, 
from Senate and Congress to 
various Michigan statehouse 
and Oakland County positions. 
These races are largely being 
overlooked by other media 
this election cycle, as the lion’
s 
share of coverage is being 
poured into the presidency. We 
couldn’
t interview every candi-
date on the ballot, but we tried 
to prioritize the races of great-
est consequence to our readers.
In the most high-profile 
Michigan race, the U.S. Senate, 
we are also publishing a feature 
on Republican Senate candidate 
John James and his Jewish con-
nections. We did this because 
I felt these connections were 
interesting, had not previously 
been reported and were worth 
our time to explore. Our goal 
is not to play favorites between 
the candidates but rather to 
illuminate the Jewish stakes of 
this very tight race. Sen. Peters 
has written op-eds for the JN
before and is more familiar to 
our readers, while James has 
been less forthcoming with our 

publication despite this being 
his second Senate campaign. 
Not all of our election cov-
erage fit into this print issue, 
so please visit our website, 
TheJewishNews.com, for more 
of our candidate interviews. 
The interviews and sub-
sequent stories were a com-
bined effort between myself; 
JN Associate Editor Jackie 
Headapohl; Copy Editor 
David Sachs; Reporter Danny 
Schwartz; and JN freelance 
writer Madeline Halpert. 
Freelancer Sarah Williams pro-
vided invaluable assistance on 
editing candidate transcripts.
The following candidates, 
all Republicans, did not return 
our repeated requests for inter-
views or questionnaires, and 
as such are not featured in our 
elections coverage even though 
their opponents are:
• Paul Junge (8th Cong. 
Dist.)
• Charles Langworthy (9th 
Cong. Dist.)
• Jeff Jones (12th Cong. 
Dist.)
• Robert Vance Patrick (14th 
Cong. Dist.)
• Elizabeth Goss (MI-27)
• Mitch Swoboda (MI-37)
• Rep. Ryan Berman (MI-39)
• Kendra Cleary (MI-40)

One final note. In the past, 
the JN has offered candidate 
endorsements. Just like during 
the August primary, we will not 
be doing so for this election. 
Our new nonprofit owner-
ship status complicates our 
ability to formally endorse 
political candidates, but even 
if we weren’
t in that situation, 
I would still decline to have 
our publication endorse any-
one. 
My reasoning is: I don’
t 
believe media endorsements are 
a useful metric in our modern 
political dialogue, when so few 
voters remain undecided, and 
particularly not for our publi-
cation, where we have a small 
editorial staff and risk compro-
mising our reporting by issuing 
endorsements. We believe our 
role in this election is to give 
the candidates the chance to 
speak to Metro Detroit’
s Jewish 
voters directly and give you 
the tools to make up your own 
minds.
We hope the information 
contained in these pages and 
online does give you those 
tools, and that we have suc-
ceeded in representing your 
voice to your elected officials. 
Have a healthy and safe elec-
tion! 

Your Vote
Counts!

Editor’
s Note

Andrew
Lapin
Editor

12 | OCTOBER 15 • 2020 

