President with newspaper backing joining election candidates? (8)
I believe the answer is:
garfield
'president' is the definition.
(James Garfield, 20th US president)
'newspaper backing joining election candidates?' is the wordplay.
'newspaper' becomes 'rag' (informal term for a newspaper).
'backing' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'joining' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'election candidates?' becomes 'field' (field can mean all the candidates in an election).
'rag' back-to-front is 'gar'.
'gar'+'field'='GARFIELD'
'with' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for garfield that I've seen before include "Cartoon cat" , "A murdered US president" , "comic strip" , "Presidential" .)