Steve Hilton, the leading candidate for governor of California despite his status as an unapologetic Republican, called it a perfect metaphor for the state’s spate of recent failures.
After the University of Southern California abruptly canceled its televised gubernatorial debate less than 24 hours before it was set to take place, Democrats scrambled to come up with an alternative forum. Despite the frantic reaction, the crowded field of Democratic candidates couldn’t agree to the proposed ground rules.
As candidates scrambled to regroup after USC canceled the debate, the large field of Democrats still couldn’t agree on a commitment to continue including all the candidates in future debates.
The debate implosion and the subsequent failure to quickly reorganize played right into the leading GOP contender’s hands.
“This is just so symptomatic of everything that’s wrong with California,” Hilton told RealClearPolitics on Tuesday in the aftermath of the debate’s cancellation. “Everything is broken, from the high-speed rail, where they haven’t laid any tracks. Then last week we saw that $100 million butterfly bridge to nowhere. Nothing works. Everything’s broken. It’s all a shambles. They can’t even organize a debate.”
Decades ago, USC was considered a conservative alternative to public academic institutions across the state. More recently, the private university has become indistinguishable from the rest — at least when it comes to cancel culture.
All of the candidates the university had decided to invite to participate in the planned debate, hosted by Univision and KABC, are white. All of the candidates left out are minorities who also happened to be polling in the single digits: California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond (D), former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), and former California State Controller Betty Yee (D) were not invited after the university said they had not met their debate criteria.
Those invited included former Fox News host Steve Hilton (R), Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D), former Rep. Katie Porter (D), businessman Tom Steyer (D), and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan (D).
“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,” the university said in a statement. “Unfortunately, USC and [debate co-sponsor] KABC have not been able to reach an agreement on expanding the number of candidates. … 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.”
The university would not commit to a new date for the debate.
Hilton and Bianco have been leading the crowded pack of candidates for months, stirring up panic amid veteran Democratic Party operatives that they could both emerge from the June 2 primary to run against one another and shut out Democrats entirely. Swalwell and Porter have been polling around 10%, with Steyer, despite spending tens of millions of dollars, a few points behind.
Under California’s “top-two” primary system, only the two candidates with the most votes, regardless of party, will advance to the general election. Democrats are concerned that Hilton and Bianco are poised to do so if the field of Democratic candidates doesn’t narrow down quickly.
It was Mahan’s invitation, however, that really stung among those sidelined from the stage. A white Democratic centrist candidate, Mahan had only recently entered the race and was polling in the single digits along with those excluded from the debate.
Still USC explained his inclusion by citing a new debate-inclusion criteria that valued intensive fundraising. The Democrats complaining about being left out didn’t buy the rationale and instead cited Mahan’s USC ties as evidence of special treatment.
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Mike Murphy, co-director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, which was hosting the debate, had been, on a voluntary basis, advising an independent expenditure committee supporting Mahan. Yet Murphy claimed to have nothing to do with organizing the debate and pledged to temporarily step down from his university role if he decided to accept a paid position from any entity backing Mahan.
Over the weekend when Xavier Becerra (D), Thurmond, and others started complaining about Mahan’s inclusion, top Democratic legislators decided to weigh in.
The speaker of California’s Assembly, Robert Rivas, and the leader of the state Senate, Monique Limon, joined the leaders of the legislative Latino, Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, Native American, LGBTQ, Jewish, and women’s caucuses in writing a letter to USC President Beong-Soo Kim demanding that they change their “biased criteria.”
“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,” the legislators wrote. “Instead of responding to these valid concerns by expanding the debate, USC has doubled down.”
The debate was supposed to take place at a critical time — with two Republican candidates consistently running ahead of their Democratic counterparts, none of whom has broken out of a crowded field. It also was set to occur less than two months before the state planned to send ballots to every registered voter.
In early March, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks published an open letter urging Democratic contenders to consider dropping out if they didn’t see a realistic path to a primary victory.
“If you do not have a viable path to make it to the general election, do not file to place your name on the ballot for the primary election,” Hicks wrote just days before the March 6 filing deadline. But no candidate decided to heed Hicks’ call, and the letter drew a scathing response from Thurmond, who asserted that it was aimed at pressuring “candidates of color” to end their gubernatorial bids.
“Our political system is rigged,” Thurmond said. “The California Democratic Party is essentially telling every candidate of color in the race for governor to drop out.”
Hicks rejected that criticism, noting the letter did not name any specific candidate.
As candidates scrambled to regroup after USC canceled the debate, the large field of Democrats still couldn’t agree on a commitment to continue including all the candidates in future debates.
Part of the group wanted all parties to abide by a pledge to participate in future debates only if all Democratic candidates are invited. But that idea fell apart when they couldn’t get a commitment from fellow Democratic candidates.
Still Becerra, one of the candidates who was not invited to the USC debate, celebrated the decision to quash it entirely in a post on X:
We fought. We won! We stood up against an unfair candidate debate set-up that prematurely chose winners and losers. Tonight USC made the right decision to cancel their March 24 gubernatorial forum … so hopefully next time it’s done right. Thank you to everyone who stood up, raised hell and demanded justice. Never give up when you’re fighting for fairness!
The Democratic disarray on rescheduling handed an opportunity to Hilton and Bianco. Instead of taking the night off, Hilton held an X.com space with more than 300 people participating. Meanwhile Bianco spoke to supporters at an event in Los Angeles.
A Bianco campaign social media post crossed out the words “debate watch party” and blamed Democrats for the abrupt change.
“The Ds got the debate canceled, but we’re showing up anyway!” the post said. “See you tonight @sheriffbianco will be there.”
Hilton, who has been campaigning for roughly a year and has led in the polls for months, shared an X space forum with Elaine Culotti, an independent candidate for governor who is running under “NPP” — no party preference.
Culotti, a California real estate developer and interior designer who starred in the Discovery+ reality series “Undercover Billionaire,” appears poised to throw her support to Hilton if he wins the primary, even though she argues that her current participation in the race takes votes away from Swalwell.
The two more ideologically aligned candidates continued to criticize Democrats for blowing up the debate while laying out their own visions for reforming California, by not only stopping the U-Haul exodus of those moving out to find more affordable places to live but attracting more businesses to the state. Culotti said she would do so by reducing taxes to attract more than 100,000 businesses, leading to more jobs and more tax revenue.
Hilton said he would address affordability and businesses’ exodus from the state by opening up more oil and gas exploration, something he said could be done by executive order and by “kicking out all the climate fanatics” that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) placed in key positions in the government.
“Right now, they are denying the industry permits for every aspect of [oil and gas] operating in California, whether that’s maintaining existing wells or expanding them, or drilling new ones — all of that,” Hilton said.
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Hilton and Culotti also discussed the positive aspects of having a governor in Sacramento who could work with the Trump administration to implement a forest management plan that would help prevent devastating wildfires while providing billions more in federal funds to help the Palisades and Eaton wildfire victims rebuild.
“Whatever happens in the 2028 presidential election, we know we’re going to have two years where the next governor will overlap with the Trump administration,” Hilton said. “And that’s one of the things I’m most excited about. I’ve got good, good relationships with, you know, half the Cabinet.”
No one asked Hilton how he will contend with deep animosity toward Trump in a state where the number of registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly two to one.
Instead Hilton said he would prefer that Bianco drop out so he could consolidate the Republican support while working to turn out independents and Republicans in November in an election that includes ballot initiatives to institute voter ID and to maintain Proposition 13, a state constitutional amendment that imposes strict limits on property tax increases.
“You’ve got people in charge now who just don’t think like this, and as we saw with the debate nonsense and raising the race card … they’re just on a different planet,” Hilton said. “But the underlying answer to how you deliver all of these things is just to take a sledgehammer to the massive, bloated nanny-state bureaucracy that is making everything so expensive and so difficult.”
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
California, Gop, Democrats, Governor race, Primary, Steve hilton, University of southern california, Candidates, California democrats, Trump, Midterms, Opinion & analysis, Chad bianco, Xavier becerra, Eric swalwell, Elaine culotti, Rusty hicks, Debate, Tony thurmond, Racism accusation
