the sixteenth largest daily newspaper in the United States to the twenty-first largest, by circulation. In 2020 it had a circulation of about 116,000 for its daily edition, and 337,000 for its Sunday edition. Don Bolles murder In 1976, an investigative reporter for the newspaper, Don Bolles, was the victim of a car bombing. He had been lured to a meeting in Phoenix in the course of work on a story about corruption in local politics and business and the bomb detonated as he started his car to leave. He died eleven days later. Retaliation against his pursuit of organized crime in Arizona is thought to be a motive in the murder. Political endorsements Historically, The Republic has tilted conservative editorially. It endorsed President George W. Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. On October 25, 2008, the paper endorsed Arizona Senator John McCain for president. In local elections, it endorsed in recent years Democratic candidates such as former Arizona Governor, former Secretary of Homeland Security, and now President of the University of California Janet Napolitano; and former Arizona Congressman Harry Mitchell. On September 27, 2016, the paper endorsed Hillary Clinton for the 2016 presidential election, marking the first time in the paper's 126-year history that it had endorsed a Democratic candidate for president. Previously, the paper had only withheld its endorsement from a Republican nominee/candidate twice in its history. During the unusual sequence of events that led up to the 1912 presidential election the paper had opted not to endorse the "formal" Republican party nominee for that election cycle. This was shortly after Theodore Roosevelt had lost the Republican convention nomination to William Howard Taft in the controversial, and allegedly rigged, party convention of that year. After Roosevelt's convention loss, and also after the hasty formation of the "made to order" Bull Moose Party, the paper continued to endorse Roosevelt via the newly formed party. As a result of Roosevelt's insistence on an independent presidential bid that year, the Republican Party of 1912 was in disarray, yielding that year's presidential election to the Democrats, with the GOP only able to carry a total of eight electoral votes that year. Two of the main planks of Roosevelt's progressive Bull Moose platform had been campaign finance reform and improved governmental accountability. In the 1968 presidential election, the paper declined to endorse either Richard Nixon or Hubert Humphrey, asserting that