{"id":670814,"date":"2026-03-21T05:47:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/670814\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T05:47:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:47:24","slug":"democrats-excluded-from-usc-governor-debate-urge-rivals-to-boycott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/670814\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats excluded from USC governor debate urge rivals to boycott"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Four Democrats running for governor called on their fellow candidates to boycott an upcoming debate at USC, reiterating concerns that the criteria used to determine who was invited to participate resulted in every prominent candidate of color being excluded from the forum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ask each and every candidate who is in this race to recognize that if we can\u2019t have a fair process for a debate, then we should all not participate,\u201d said Xavier Becerra, the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary. \u201cWe call on them to withdraw from this biased forum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becerra\u2019s call was echoed by former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former state Controller Betty Yee during a Friday afternoon news conference.<\/p>\n

The candidate\u2019s request comes a week after some of them raised concerns about the criteria for Tuesday\u2019s debate, arguing that it was engineered to allow the inclusion of San Jos\u00e9 Mayor Matt Mahan, who entered the race in late January<\/a> and quickly raised millions of dollars from Silicon Valley<\/a> executives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rules initially were polling and money. Matt Mahan is [polling] lower than some of us, period,\u201d Villaraigosa said, adding that the debate organizers \u201cthen added time in the race,\u201d which resulted in Mahan\u2019s invitation.<\/p>\n

Mahan\u2019s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Friday, but when Becerra raised such concerns last week, Mahan said the former Biden administration official ought to be included in the debate.<\/p>\n

The matter is further complicated by Mahan supporters who have notable ties to the university.<\/p>\n

Mike Murphy, a co-director of the USC center hosting the debate, has been voluntarily advising an independent expenditure committee backing Mahan. The veteran GOP strategist said last week that he had nothing to do with organizing the debate and that he has asked for unpaid leave at the university through the June 2 primary if he takes a paid role in the campaign.<\/p>\n

USC has also received tens of millions of dollars in donations from billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso<\/a> and his wife. Caruso, a USC alumnus who served as a trustee for years, is also a Mahan supporter.<\/p>\n

A representative for Caruso did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The debate, hosted by the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, KABC-TV Los Angeles and Univision, is scheduled to take place on campus at 5 p.m. Tuesday \u2014 less than two months before ballots begin arriving in voters\u2019 mailboxes. The forum will be streamed and broadcast on ABC and Univision affiliates across the state.<\/p>\n

USC and the television stations put out a joint statement Friday morning, prior to the candidates\u2019 news conference, justifying the criteria used to determine who was invited to participate and saying none of the debate partners had any influence on the methodology.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be clear that we categorically, unequivocally deny any allegations that the debate criteria was in any way biased in favor or against any candidate and want to clarify the facts,\u201d they said in a statement, adding that Christian Grose, a USC political science professor, was asked to develop \u201cdata-driven\u201d benchmarks to determine which candidates were invited. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe methodology was based on well-established metrics consistent with formulas widely used to set debate participation nationwide \u2014 a combination of polling and fundraising \u2014 and developed without regard to any particular candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the Democratic candidates called for their competitors to not participate, USC and KABC declined to comment further. Univision did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Grose defended the methodology he crafted as \u201cobjective\u201d in an interview Friday, and said he met with Becerra as well as the staff of other candidates to explain it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that it was biased or designed to create some sort of outcome to disfavor the candidates who spoke at the press conference is just not correct,\u201d Grose said, adding that attacks on the methodology have a \u201cchilling effect\u201d on universities and media outlets who sponsor debates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not worried about the optics,\u201d he said. \u201cThe optics are we are having a debate at USC to inform voters and educate students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jarred Cuellar, a political science assistant professor at Cal Poly Pomona, described Grose\u2019s methodology as \u201cthoughtful\u201d and \u201cempirically grounded,\u201d and characterized the concerns raised by candidates not included in the debate as unfounded and not credible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe formula is methodologically sound and represents a clear improvement over how debate participation has often been determined,\u201d he said. \u201cRather than relying on a single metric such as polling, it takes a multidimensional approach to evaluating candidate viability. That approach better reflects how political scientists measure complex phenomena like electoral competitiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the controversy has caused consternation among USC professors past and present.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like an unforced error that is casting the entire event in a bad light,\u201d said a current USC professor who closely follows politics but is not involved in the debate, and who asked for anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cIt\u2019s super important that if the debate happens, it happens correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darry Sragow, a veteran Democratic strategist who taught election and environmental law at USC for 19 years, said that while he believes the large field of Democratic candidates needs to be winnowed, that\u2019s not the job of a university or media outlets.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery one of these eight [Democratic candidates] is capable of running the state of California,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would certainly be my advice to USC and to Univision and to ABC to allow all the candidates to take part, or to cancel the debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The four Democratic candidates not invited to the debate argued that voters are just starting to pay attention to the thus-far sleepy race<\/a> and that diverse candidates should be represented.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a minority-majority state, and the idea that the four candidates of color are not going to be on the stage to bring those perspectives, to really speak to those communities, is really not doing right by the voters,\u201d Yee said.<\/p>\n

Becerra said some of the candidates had requested to speak with top university leadership, including President Beong-Soo Kim. In other conversations, he said university officials raised the possibility of \u201ceither canceling this debate or incorporating more of the candidates in it. Evidently they could not agree to do that. \u2026 I think they recognize that there were problems with the way this debate had been organized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becerra said he reviewed the formula and has \u201cnever seen\u201d debate criteria like it before during his decades of serving in elected office.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour fundraising numbers are divided by the number of days you\u2019ve been out there campaigning in front of voters,\u201d he said. \u201cSo you could have raised millions of dollars, but if you\u2019ve been in longer than someone else who just raised millions of dollars very quickly, you get penalized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campaigns for most of the invited candidates \u2014 Democrats Rep. Eric Swalwell of Dublin, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, climate activist Tom Steyer and Mahan; as well as Republican Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County \u2014 did not respond to requests for comment on the call to boycott the debate.<\/p>\n

Former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton, a Republican who will be appearing at the debate, blasted the Democrats who were upset about not qualifying for the debate as well as USC\u2019s debate criteria as \u201ccompletely ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got a bunch of Democrats that aren\u2019t doing well enough to get into the debate, complaining about it, and I don\u2019t have any time for that at all. Do better, and then you\u2019ll get in the debate,\u201d Hilton said in a video posted Friday evening on the social media platform X. \u201cThen you\u2019ve got Matt Mahan, who\u2019s a candidate who\u2019s just got into the race, absolutely doesn\u2019t meet the criteria, but they\u2019ve rigged the rules in order to get him in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hilton said he was also offended by the exclusion of developer Elaine Culotti, who starred in the second season of the reality show \u201cUndercover Billionaire\u201d and is running for governor as an independent.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a businesswoman, she\u2019s got a big following. There\u2019s a lot of independent voters in California now. Of course, I would love those voters to support my campaign, but the fact that you don\u2019t have an independent on that stage, you\u2019ve got a bunch of Democrats, and you\u2019ve got two Republicans, but no independent, that is outrageous,\u201d Hilton said of Culotti, who has never registered support in any public polls. \u201cShe should be on that stage next week at USC.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four Democrats running for governor called on their fellow candidates to boycott an upcoming debate at USC, reiterating…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":670815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,14732,13140,211170,33599,12847,2961,224,5337,87937,151283,10999,87645,43855,4280,57385,11016,9111,180448],"class_list":["post-670814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-candidate","tag-comment","tag-criterion","tag-debate","tag-dollar","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-matt-mahan","tag-methodology","tag-million","tag-polling","tag-request","tag-university","tag-univision","tag-usc","tag-voter","tag-xavier-becerra"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116265592194343510","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}