As they have for months, Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders remain the overall front-runners for the Democratic nomination, holding a consistent lead in national polls while maintaining strong financial support and expansive, experienced operations.
[Which Democrats are leading the 2020 presidential race?]
The editorial board found fault with both men. Mr. Sanders’s policy prescriptions are described as “overly rigid, untested and divisive.” In an observation likely to anger his supporters, the board compared the Vermont senator to Mr. Trump at one point.
“Three years into the Trump administration, we see little advantage to exchanging one over-promising, divisive figure in Washington for another,” it writes.
Mr. Biden, meanwhile, is described as preferring “merely restoring the status quo,” with an agenda “that tinkers at the edges” and will not sufficiently advance the country, in the board’s view.
“What’s more, Mr. Biden is 77,” the board adds. “It is time for him to pass the torch to a new generation of political leaders.”
Of Mr. Buttigieg, the board writes, “His showing in the lead-up to the primaries predicts a bright political future; we look forward to him working his way up.”
Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, declined to meet with the board, saying that he did not yet have positions on enough issues.
In the 2016 presidential primary race, the board endorsed Mrs. Clinton for the Democratic nomination and wrote that John Kasich, then the governor of Ohio, was “the only plausible choice for Republicans.”