{"id":61943,"date":"2024-01-04T11:12:40","date_gmt":"2024-01-04T19:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=61943"},"modified":"2024-01-04T11:12:40","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T19:12:40","slug":"first-televised-debate-of-the-2024-senate-race-locks-out-major-candidates-in-open-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=61943","title":{"rendered":"First Televised Debate of the 2024 Senate Race Locks Out Major Candidates in Open Primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES, CA \u2013\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0POLITICO, FOX 11 Los Angeles, and USC Dornsife For the Political Future announced that it would lock out candidates that collectively represent 20% of voter support, including Democrat Christina Pascucci and Republican Eric Early, from the first California US Senate debate on January 22, 2024.<\/p>\n

The debate will only include four candidates: Democrats Barbara\u00a0Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff, and Republican Steve Garvey.\u00a0 Debate organizers say this decision is based on a recent\u00a0POLITICO\/Morning Consult poll<\/a>. However, the decision-makers did not release any clear criteria or rationale for their choice ahead of this announcement, much less how the poll was conducted.<\/p>\n

By limiting the debate to only four candidates (and assuming, arguendo, the poll has merit), debate organizers are effectively silencing the voices of at least 20% of California voters who, based on the organizers\u2019 purported numbers, support other candidates, including moderate and conservative ones.<\/p>\n

POLITICO\u2019s\u00a0announcement<\/a>\u00a0says it all, calling the debate a \u201cclash in Los Angeles […] which pits some of the Democratic Party\u2019s biggest names against each other in one of the nation\u2019s bluest states.\u201d This presupposes a winner from the three Democratic candidates who vote in lockstep with their party.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t a debate with the qualified candidates whom voters have chosen, it\u2019s a coronation of Adam Schiff, the leader of California\u2019s left wing Democrats,\u201d\u00a0said Christina Pascucci.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cBy excluding serious candidates with durable support, they are failing in their duty to provide civic discussion to the public. That undermines the democratic process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organizers\u2019 questionable \u201csurvey\u201d forced respondents to choose a candidate\u00a0even if they were undecided on who they would support in the race,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>and unlike other polls nationwide, apparently\u00a0did not<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0even take into account the number of the candidates\u2019 respective donors, and also failed to take into account California\u2019s \u201cjungle\u201d primary system, which is vastly different from most other states in the nation.\u00a0\u00a0Other polls\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/a>have reported that up to 40% of California\u2019s voters are undecided.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Those voters deserve an opportunity to hear from candidates who quite possibly more accurately represent their values.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Media doesn\u2019t have the right to shut out candidates from the first major debate in this critically important race, and manipulate the outcome of the election in the process,\u201d\u00a0said Eric Early<\/strong>. \u201cThe organizers\u2019 proposed \u2018debate\u2019 is yet another attack on our democracy, by effectively telling California\u2019s 40% undecided voters in a \u2018jungle primary\u2019 whom they should and should not decide on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES, CA \u2013\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0POLITICO, FOX 11...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61944,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61943\/revisions\/61944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}