How were voters made aware of U.S. presidential candidates before radio and television?

I've written about this before, but essentially, newspapers both shaped and were shaped by early political parties, and a national network of subsidized distribution through the postal service meant that most towns had access to multiple newspaper titles. To quote from that earlier answer:

Anyhow, in the years after Freneau and Fenno, partisans would often organize them around newspapers, and printing presses were some of the first things to arrive in new towns. The way that the system generally worked was that each party might find an enterprising local person to serve as editor of the paper, and a skilled printer to actually produce the paper (printers themselves, being ink-stained wretches who often had deformities related to the physical difficulties of printing, were not often party leaders). The editor/printer would print political news, party platforms, and write screeds against his opposing editor, and they would often be rewarded (if the party was in power) with patronage, in the form of postmasterships and printing contracts. Newspapers also printed party ballots, which was crucial in an era before standardized ballots provided by the government.