USC canceled its gubernatorial debate scheduled for Tuesday, a surprise about-face that came after days of heated criticism about not including every bright person of color from participating.
Although the university defended the method used to determine who was invited to the forum, it canceled the event 24 hours before it took place.
In a statement Monday night, the university said it recognizes that concerns over the selection process have “caused significant disruption to issues that are important to voters.” The university said it discussed expanding the arena with debate sponsor KABC-TV Los Angeles, but was unable to reach an agreement.
USC said it was a “difficult decision” to cancel the debate, and that the university will “look for other opportunities to educate voters about the candidates and issues.”
Meanwhile, other candidates were busy organizing a new event and staying in the limelight in the race.
Democrat Tom Steyer, a wealthy climate activist, told reporters Tuesday morning that his team had found a site in downtown Los Angeles and was trying to invite all the candidates, including Republicans.
“We’re definitely going to have an event,” Steyer said, adding that “there are a lot of reporters in Los Angeles who are going to be covering this race” and “we’re trying to pull this together.”
USC has faced mounting criticism in recent days, including four prominent candidates of color who were excluded from the rally as they called on fellow Democrats to boycott the forum.
“We fought. We won! We resisted the unfair candidate debate that chose premature winners and losers,” Former US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who was not invited to participate, wrote Monday night on X.
“I thank everyone who stood up and raised hell in search of justice,” he added. “Never give up when fighting for justice!”
Conservative commentator Steve Hilton, one of the two leading Republicans in the race, has criticized the university.
“What a sad humiliation,” he said in a statement. “USC receives over a billion dollars in federal funding, and I have written to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon asking for an immediate freeze on all federal payments to USC pending a full investigation into these violations of free speech. Anyone responsible for USC should be fired.”
USC’s decision came hours after Democratic legislative leaders urged voters to boycott the debate if the university does not invite candidates.
“The outcry over this debate is deafening and includes legislative demands from elected representatives, public calls from elected leaders across the country, concerns from registered voter campaigns, and the growing fear of California voters,” said a letter sent Monday evening to USC President Beong-Soo Kim by House Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), Senate President Protemón Latino, Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, Native American, LGBTQ, Jewish and women’s caucuses.
Kim texted the people involved in the debate plans at 10:30pm on Monday to tell them that he had decided to cancel the event.
“I know this will make many of you very disappointed,” he wrote. “I hope you will understand the decision was made in good faith based on my long-term view of what is best for the university.”
Rivas and other political leaders praised Kim for canceling the event.
“At the core of our democracy is the principle that voters deserve maximum access to those who seek their support,” the speaker said in a statement. “It’s the responsibility of institutions like USC to support that goal, and I’m glad they realized this before more damage was done.”
Tuesday’s debate was scheduled to take place less than two months before ballots begin arriving in voters’ mailboxes, amid a presidential race with a field full of candidates more unpredictable than any provincial race in recent memory.
The repeal comes amid growing chances that Democrats could be locked out of the national election under a two-party system.
A new poll released Tuesday by the California Democratic Party — an effort by Chairman Rusty Hicks to push low-ballot candidates out of the race — also showed two Republican candidates leading the field.
Hilton led with 16% support, followed by Chad Bianco, a Republican from Riverside County, with 14%. Democrats Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and Steyer tied for 10% support while all other Democrats voted in the low single digits. The largest group of voters, 24%, said it was not clear.
“It’s yet another reminder of the undeniable truth that all candidates must honestly examine their path to victory, and I continue to urge them to do so,” Hicks said.
Pressed on how to define efficiency, the party chairman said, “If you vote 1% to 2%, do you have a way to get to 20[%]? That is the question. Do you have a way to put yourself in a position to win the first election?”
The controversy in the debate centered on the methods used to determine who was invited. The formula included a fundraising score for each candidate that was calculated by dividing the amount of money each candidate raised, according to a publicly filed filing, by the number of days they spent in the race.
Candidates and politicians have dismissed that approach, saying it penalizes those who entered the race early and who recently raised money through small-dollar donations, which don’t have to be reported right away. During the 90 days before an election, state law requires donations of more than $1,000 to be disclosed within 24 hours.
But political scientists, public policy professors and researchers affiliated with USC, UCLA, Stanford, Harvard and several other universities across the country issued a letter Monday defending Christian Grose, the USC political science professor who developed the approach.
They called on the university to publicly defend Grose, saying that while scholarly debate is important, criticism of the debate’s constructed terms has turned ugly and was part of a broader effort to chill academic discourse.
“What Professor Grose faced … is not a substantive or methodological debate. The attacks and statements from members of the political class include completely baseless allegations of electoral fraud, inconsistency, bias, and data manipulation,” the letter said. “This is a dangerous character assassination. … It is part of another effort to strengthen the arm or criticize the scholars who have become too common in America.”
A USC statement about the cancellation of the debate said the university “vigorously defends the independence, determination and integrity of Professor Christian Grose, whose data-driven formula for success is based on extensive research and enjoys broad academic support.”
Grose did not respond to a request for comment Monday night.
The controversy over the method Grose has developed to choose which candidates to run has centered on the inclusion of San José Mayor Matt Mahan — a white candidate who recently entered the race and is polling in the single digits. At the time, Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former state superintendent Betty Yee are not included.
“The university’s selection process – built on a formula that has never been used for a debate of this scale, brought a biased result,” said the letter from the legislative leaders. “When a certain method produces this result — one that nominates a candidate with significant ties to the USC donor community and the director of the Dornsife Center for the Political Future — the burden falls on USC to explain itself, not on everyone else to accept it.”
The Dornsife Center and its broadcast partners, KABC-TV Los Angeles and Univision, “unequivocally, unequivocally” denied that the debate’s approach was biased or against any individual.
“This methodology was based on well-established metrics consistent with widely used formulas to gauge national debate participation – a combination of polling and fundraising,” they said in a joint statement on Friday.
Mike Murphy, a co-founder of the Dornsife Center, has been volunteering to advise the independent spending committee supporting Mahan. The veteran GOP strategist previously said he had nothing to do with organizing the debate and said he requested unpaid leave from the university until June 2 for the primary if he would participate.
USC also received tens of millions of dollars in donations from billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso and his wife. Caruso, a USC alumnus who has served as a trustee for years, is also a supporter of Mahan.
Caruso told The Times that he “didn’t talk to the debate organizers or the organizers,” and said he believes these forums “should include all honest people.”
In a statement on Tuesday, Caruso said the debate should be postponed. He also criticized the California Democratic Party, saying it “needs to wake up and strengthen. Candidates who have been campaigning for two years, can’t raise money, and stay with low numbers that need to retreat or be sidelined.”
Dan Schnur, who teaches politics and communications classes at USC and other California universities, said that in canceling the debate, “the university took a bad situation and made it a little worse. The best response would have been to put all 10 people on the debate stage. But if they failed, they knew they couldn’t sustain the criticism of their appearance without four people.”
Schnur also signed a public letter in support of Grose, saying “the professor’s approach was fine in the political vacuum.”
“But it’s unfortunate that no one at USC saw the problems that would arise if the political landscape changed” and Mahan entered the race with the support of Caruso and Murphy, Schnur said.
Democrats scheduled to participate Tuesday — Swalwell, Porter, Steyer and Mahan — criticized USC’s selection process but did not walk out of the debate before it was withdrawn.
“It’s a shame that USC decided to promote one person over others,” Swalwell wrote in X on Sunday. “USC, and the entire gubernatorial conference, must use a fair, objective, and honest process for all candidates.”
Porter expressed similar thoughts.
“The criteria used to determine which candidates are eligible to participate in the debate must be transparent, fair, and objective,” he wrote in X. “I am disappointed in the way USC handled Tuesday’s debate process. The candidates and the people of California deserve answers.”
