NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Top Democrats in the California state legislature demanded that the University of Southern California (USC) either expand the number of candidates allowed to participate in the gubernatorial debate, which had five White candidates, or they would boycott the debate.
The “data-driven” candidate viability framework produced a lineup of Republicans Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, as well as Democrats Tom Steyer, Matt Mahan, Katie Porter, Eric Swalwell – all White candidates. The same criteria, developed by a USC professor and defended by the university, ended up axing Xavier Becerra, Antonio Villaraigosa, Betty Yee and Tony Thurman, all Democratic Party minority candidates, due to lower polling and fundraising scores, they said.
After news of who made the candidate pool and who did not, the excluded candidates expressed outrage over what they claimed was a racist candidate viability system created by USC that targeted people based on their race. One candidate, former Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra, even likened it to when his father used to talk about “the days when he would encounter signs posted outside establishments that read ‘No Dogs, Negroes or Mexicans Allowed.’”
GOP GUBERNATORIAL HOPEFUL HAILS LEGENDARY GOLFER FOR HEFTY CAMPAIGN DONATION: ‘INCREDIBLY HONORED’
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill on November 20, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Among those expressing outrage besides the candidates themselves were California state Senate President pro Tempore Monique Limon, Speaker of the California State Assembly Robert Rivas, and a handful of other Democratic Party members within the state legislature who called the decision-making framework “biased” in a letter they signed that also included concerns about one of the selected candidate’s donor ties to the university. They also referred to candidate’s complaints,…
