Now the Examiner Ditches Julian Davis
Julian Davis' troubled campaign for city supervisor just got a little more so after a second newspaper dropped its endorsement amid allegations that he groped a woman at a political event six years ago. The San Francisco Examiner printed an editorial today withdrawing its support for Davis, saying there are now "too many doubts" about the District 5 candidate. 
Center photo | Luke Thomas Julian Davis, center
However, the Ex does defend its original endorsement, claiming its editorial staff did in fact ask Davis point-blank about "rumors" involving women in his past. The paper didn't get into specifics of what those rumors were, but said that Davis acknowledged at the time he might have been a little too forward with women, but he's since learned from his mistakes.
Apparently, that response from Davis was good enough for the Ex, which went ahead and endorsed him, despite stated concerns from the newspaper's publisher, Todd Vogt.
Yesterday, Vogt, who is also the publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, told us that he "was never in favor of either papers' endorsement and I made it
clear to both the editorial staffs they better be sure before making
that endorsement."
The Bay Guardian pulled its endorsement yesterday, going as far as to ask Davis to drop out of the race. While the Ex didn't urge the candidate to withdraw from the race, it claims the allegations are enough reason to dump Davis three weeks before Election Day.
Per the Ex:
While this is just an accusation and the truth itself may never emerge about what actually occurred between Davis and his accuser, we have no choice but to take the allegation seriously. And while it would be naive not to recognize that this accusation emerged right at the end of a political campaign, we are troubled by the way Davis has responded to this accusation.
The newspaper pulled its support two days after SF Weekly broke the story about Davis. After Davis sent a cease-and-desist letter to his accuser, two progressive supervisors -- John Avalos and David Campos -- withdrew their endorsements, and the defections have continued.
According to Davis' campaign website, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano is no longer listed as a supporter, along with the two newspapers and the two city supervisors. We put in a call to Ammiano to confirm that he, too, dropped his support for Davis.
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