Scientific American, backing Biden, makes its first ever presidential endorsement.

Scientific American has been in circulation since Abraham Lincoln was a humble lawyer in Springfield, Ill. But the magazine had not formally endorsed a presidential candidate until Tuesday, when it urged its readers to vote for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in a scathing editorial that condemned President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus and other science-related issues.

“The pandemic would strain any nation and system, but Trump’s rejection of evidence and public health measures have been catastrophic,” the editorial said, pointing to the president’s misleading statements downplaying the virus’s severity, his early disparagement of mask-wearing, his chastising of governors who declined to reopen businesses in their states and his administration’s well-documented testing failures.

“At every stage, Trump has rejected the unmistakable lesson that controlling the disease, not downplaying it, is the path to economic reopening and recovery,” added the editorial, which was bylined by the magazine’s editors and primarily written by Josh Fischman, a senior editor.

The editorial also criticized other actions taken by the Trump administration, such as repeatedly trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act without submitting an alternative, eliminating regulations designed to protect the environment and proposing drastic cuts in scientific research. It appears in the October issue, which went online Tuesday and will hit subscribers’ mailboxes this week.