Troy Turner, an editor at the Opelika-Auburn News newspaper in Alabama, published an op-ed last month calling on Roy Moore to step down as the Republican Party's Senate candidate in Alabama.
However, he still would not go so far as to write an endorsement for Democrat Doug Jones, who is Moore's rival in the Alabama Senate race.
The reason for this, Turner tells the Washington Post, is that "I would have bullet holes in my windows" if he penned a Jones endorsement.
The Post says that the paper's call for Moore to step aside resulted in some "ticked-off readers," but no bullet holes so far.
Even so, many Moore backers bashed the paper on its Facebook page, as one resident called it out for spreading a "liberal hit job" about Moore, while another attacked Doug Jones for being a supposed "liberal baby killer."
Turner said that, while he couldn't condone backing Roy Moore, he still wanted his newspaper to be reflective of the community it serves.
"At the big papers, they don’t go into the coffee shops and churches with their readers like we do," he explained to the Post. "We have to be strategic crusaders."