Using OR in WP_Query negates the “NOT EXISTS” compare
array( ‘relation’ => ‘OR’, array( ‘key’ => ‘status’, ‘value’ => ”, //<— not required but necessary in this case ‘compare’ => ‘NOT EXISTS’, ), array( ‘key’ => ‘status’, ‘value’ => ‘new’, ‘compare’ => ‘=’, ), ); That should do it.