USC cancels gubernatorial debate amid mounting criticism

USC canceled its planned Tuesday gubernatorial debate, a stunning about-face that came after days of fiery criticism about excluding every prominent candidate of color from participating.

Although the university defended the methodology used to determine who was invited to participate in the forum, it called off the event less than 24 hours before it was to take place.

In a statement late Monday night, the university said it recognized concerns about the selection criteria had “created a significant distraction from the issues that matter to voters.” The university said it discussed potentially expanding the field with debate cosponsor 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 on the candidates and issues.”

Meanwhile, some candidates were scrambling to organize a new event and keep a spotlight on the race.

Democrat Tom Steyer, a wealthy climate activist, told reporters Tuesday morning that his team had secured a venue in downtown Los Angeles and was reaching out to invite all the major candidates, including Republicans.

“We will definitely have an event,” Steyer said, adding that “there are a lot of reporters in Los Angeles to talk about this race” and “we’re trying to put this together on the fly.”

USC had faced increasing criticism in recent days, including from the four prominent candidates of color who were excluded from the gathering as they called on their fellow Democrats to boycott the forum.

“We fought. We won! We stood up against an unfair candidate debate set-up that prematurely chose winners and losers,” former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who was not invited to participate, posted Monday night on X.

“Thank you to everyone who stood up, raised hell and demanded justice,” he added. “Never give up when you’re fighting for fairness!”

Conservative commentator Steve Hilton, one of two main Republicans in the race who have been leading polls, blasted the university.

“What a pathetic humiliation,” he said in a statement. “USC receives over a billion dollars in federal funding, and I have written to Education Secretary Linda McMahon calling for an immediate suspension of all federal payments to USC pending a full investigation into this anti-free-speech shambles. Whoever is responsible at USC should be fired.”

USC’s decision came hours after Democratic legislative leaders called on voters to boycott the debate if the university did not invite the excluded candidates.

“The outcry over this debate is deafening and includes legal demands from the excluded candidates’ attorneys, public calls by elected leaders across the state, concerns from the included candidates’ own campaigns, and growing alarm from California voters,” said the letter sent Monday evening to USC President Beong-Soo Kim by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón (D-Goleta) and the leaders of the legislative Latino, Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, Native American, LGBTQ, Jewish and women’s caucuses.

Kim emailed people involved with debate planning at 10:30 p.m. Monday to advise them he had decided to cancel the event.

“I know this will make several of you extremely disappointed,” he wrote. “I hope you will understand the decision was made in good faith based on my long-term view as to what was best for the university.”

Rivas and other political leaders commended Kim for canceling the event.

“At the core of our democracy is the principle that voters deserve maximum access to the candidates seeking their support,” the speaker said in a statement. “It’s the responsibility of institutions like USC to uphold that principle, and I’m glad they recognized this before more harm was done.”

Tuesday’s debate was set to take place less than two months before ballots begin arriving in voters’ mailboxes, in the midst of a gubernatorial contest with a sprawling field of candidates that is more unpredictable than any statewide race in recent memory.

The cancellation comes amid a growing possibility that Democrats could be shut out of the general election under the state’s top-two primary system.

A new poll released Tuesday by the California Democratic Party — an effort by Chairman Rusty Hicks to pressure lower-polling candidates to drop out of the race — again showed two Republican candidates leading the field.

Hilton led with 16% support, followed by Chad Bianco, the Republican sheriff of Riverside County, with 14%. Democrats Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and Steyer were tied with 10% support while all other Democrats polled in the low single digits. The largest bloc of voters, 24%, said they were undecided.

“It’s yet another reminder of the undeniable fact that all candidates must honestly assess their viable path to win, and I continue to call for them to do so,” Hicks said.

Pressed on how he defines viability, the party chair said, “If you’re polling at 1% to 2%, do you have a path to get to 20[%]? That’s the question. Do you have a path to put you in a position to win the primary election?”

Turmoil over the debate centered around the criteria 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 public filings, by the number of days they have been in the race.

Candidates and politicians blasted that methodology, arguing that it penalized candidates who got into the race early and who have raised recent funds through small-dollar donations, which are not required to be reported right away. During the 90 days preceding an election, state law requires donations over $1,000 to be disclosed within 24 hours.

But political scientists, public policy professors and researchers associated with USC, UCLA, Stanford, Harvard and several other universities across the nation issued a letter Monday defending Christian Grose, the USC political science professor who developed the methodology.

They called on the university to publicly defend Grose, arguing that although scholarly debate is important, the criticism about the debate criteria he fashioned had turned ugly and was part of a broader effort to chill academic speech.

“What Professor Grose has faced … is not substantive or methodological debate. Attacks and insinuations from members of the political classes include completely baseless allegations of election-rigging, inconsistency, bias, and data manipulation,” the letter said. “These are harmful character assassinations. … They are of a piece with other attempts to strong-arm or malign scholars that have become all too common in America.”

USC’s statement about the debate’s cancellation said the university “vigorously defends the independence, objectivity, and integrity of USC Professor Christian Grose, whose data-driven candidate viability formula is based on extensive research and enjoys broad academic support.”

Grose did not respond to a request for comment late Monday night.

The controversy over the methodology that Grose developed to select which candidates to include 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. Meanwhile, Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former state Controller Betty Yee were excluded.

“The university’s selection process — built on a formula never before used for a debate of this scale, has delivered a result that is biased,” the legislative leaders’ letter said. “When a methodology produces this outcome — one that elevates a candidate with notable ties to USC’s donor community and the co-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, “categorically, unequivocally” denied that the debate criteria was biased for or against any candidate.

“The methodology was based on well-established metrics consistent with formulas widely used to set debate participation nationwide — a combination of polling and fundraising,” they said in a joint statement on Friday.

Mike Murphy, a co-director of the Dornsife Center, has been voluntarily advising an independent expenditure committee backing Mahan. The veteran GOP strategist previously said he had nothing to do with organizing the debate and that he had asked for unpaid leave at the university through the June 2 primary if he were to take a paid role.

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

Caruso told The Times he “had no conversations with the debate hosts or organizers,” and said he believes such forums “should include all the credible candidates.”

In a statement on Tuesday, Caruso said the debate should be rescheduled. He also criticized the California Democratic Party, saying it “needs to wake up and toughen up. Candidates who’ve been campaigning for two years, can’t raise money, and remain in the low single digits need to step aside or be pushed aside.”

Dan Schnur, who teaches politics and communications classes at USC and other California universities, said in canceling the debate, “the university took a bad situation and made it slightly less bad. The best answer would have been to include all 10 candidates on the debate stage. But failing that, they knew they couldn’t sustain the criticism of appearing to exclude four minority candidates.”

Schnur also signed onto the public letter supporting Grose, and said the professor’s “methodology was perfectly fine in a political vacuum.”

“But it’s unfortunate that no one at USC noticed the problems it would create once the political reality changed” and Mahan entered the race with backing from Caruso and Murphy, Schnur said.

The Democrats who were set to participate Tuesday — Swalwell, Porter, Steyer and Mahan — condemned USC’s selection criteria but did not pull out of the debate prior to its cancellation.

“It is a shame that USC has decided to elevate one candidate at the expense of others,” Swalwell wrote on X on Sunday. “USC, and every host of a gubernatorial debate, should employ fair, objective, and honest criteria for all candidates.”

Porter expressed similar thoughts.

“Criteria used to determine which candidates qualify to participate in a debate must be transparent, fair, and objective,” she wrote on X. “I’m disappointed by how USC handled the process for Tuesday’s debate. Candidates and Californians deserve answers.”