Gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer announced Tuesday morning during a press call on Zoom that he would host a debate Tuesday evening in Los Angeles, with an independent moderator.
“We are trying to make sure that the people of California get a chance to hear from the people running who are running to be governor and get a chance in a fair open debate so they can be well informed and choose who they want,” Steyer said.
The announcement came hours after USC cancelled their debate set for Tuesday evening, after receiving pressure over the exclusion of all candidates of color.
“We recognize that concerns about the selection criteria for tomorrow’s gubernatorial debate have created a significant distraction from the issues that matter to voters,” USC wrote in a statement to the Los Angeles Times late Monday evening. “Unfortunately, USC and KABC have not been able to reach an agreement on expanding the number of candidates at tomorrow’s debate. As a result, USC has made the difficult decision to cancel tomorrow’s debate and will look for other opportunities to educate voters on the candidates and issues.”
Democratic candidates Xavier Becerra, Betty Yee, Antonio Villaraigosa and Tony Thurmond were not invited to the USC/ABC7 debate because they did not meet the criteria which was established last year, according to USC.
The university’s Democracy and Fair Elections Lab used both polling numbers and total dollars raised to give candidates a “viability score.” The USC debate was set to include Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco and Democrats Steyer, Eric Swalwell, Katie Porter and Matt Mahan.
“Obviously this debate, both how it was set up and the fact that it was canceled is kind of a mess up,” Steyer said. “We need debates with fair and transparent criteria and that wasn’t the case with the arbitrary criteria that were used for this debate. It had the strong appearance of being rigged to benefit one particular candidate and I think that is something which ultimately forced it to be cancelled.”
Steyer said the debate outcry would not have occurred if San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a late entrant into the race, was not invited. He was polling in line with or below the other Democrats not invited, but met the criteria because of millions donated to his campaign since he announced on Jan. 29.
“It seemed as though he was behind in polling and total amount of dollars raised,” Steyer said. “You know I am not here to judge exactly how it’s supposed to work. What I am here to do is try and make sure we have a debate that the people of California can hear that is fair and inclusive.”
He said that several candidates were invited who did not qualify for the original debate in addition to all the candidates invited to the USC debate.
“Tonight in place of the debate that was supposed to happen we are going to host a town hall in Los Angeles,” Steyer said. “We have invited every candidate. We have tried to make sure that every candidate in the race has a right to stay in. It’s not my place to say who should run but it is my place to say we should have free and fair elections and that is what we are trying to accomplish.”
The town hall Tuesday evening is slated to take place in downtown Los Angeles at 5:30 p.m., according to Steyer. The venue has yet to be announced.
Steyer said Tuesday morning that three to four candidates had confirmed their attendance, but did not disclose which ones. The primary election is scheduled for June 2.