Independent candidates, Lewis Hermes, Reza Safarnegjad and Elaine Culotti spoke to media from a private residence in the Palisades March 24 after the governor’s debate was cancelled.
The University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center, which was scheduled to hold a governor’s debate on Tuesday night on KABC and Univision was cancelled late Monday night, March 23, less than 24 hours before it was set to take place.
The governor hopefuls invited on stage were four Democrats: Tom Steyer, Eric Swalwell, Katie Porter and Matt Mahan, and two Republicans: Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco.
Missing were four Democrats (candidates of color), Xavier Bercerra, Antion Villaraigosa, Betty Yee and Tony Thurmond. Also not invited to the debate were the four independent candidates: Elaine Culotti, Lewis Hermes, Daniel Mercuri and Reza Safarnegjad.
Prior to the cancellation of the debate, a nonpartisan press conference was scheduled Tuesday morning at a private residence in Rivas Canyon in Pacific Palisades. All candidates were invited, 10 of the 14 RSVP’d.
After the debate cancellation, only three independent candidates, Culotti, Hermes and Safarnegjad, were in the Canyon to address the invited media.
“They planned not having an independent at the microphone,” Culotti said about the debate.
In California, during the 2024 Presidential primary, about 47 % were registered Democrats, 24 % Republican and Independents (no party preference) was 22 %. In the United States, 45% of voters identify as independent, and 27% as Democrats and 27% as Republicans, according to Gallup News.
Although it appeared that the debate had been cancelled because of the optics of racism, Culotti, a Palisadian, said “this was far more nefarious than the race card.
“I don’t want to discount racism, but there were going to be four Democrats, two Republicans and no independents,” Culotti said.
Candidates for the forum were selected according to “data-driven” benchmarks developed by Christian Grose, a USC political science professor.
“The methodology was based on well-established metrics consistent with formulas widely used to set debate participation nationwide — a combination of polling and fundraising — and developed without regard to any particular candidate,” USC and television stations said in a March 20 statement.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra said on X that it was an “arbitrary formula that favors wealthy candidates.”
Bercerra and Antonio Villagoraise both polled higher than Matt Mahan. Mahan, according to a February 12 story in the San Francisco Standard had raised $8.5million since the end of January, which put him behind top money leader Tom Steyer who put in more than $28 million of his own money for the gubernatorial race.
Culotti, Hermes and Safarnegjad said the scheduled debate and selection of candidates was about controlling the narrative.
Safarnegjad, a Pacific Palisades resident who lost his home in the Palisades Fire said, that “nothing is working in the state,” which is why he decided to run. As an independent, he realized that “none of these parties, people are going to back us. It’s a systematic problem and a corrupt system. And it goes back to the people who built the two-party system,” he said.
Culotti, a developer, who had one child graduate from USC and a second who is attending, reached out to everyone at USC to protest the exclusion of independents at the debate.
“At the Democratic convention, the 3,000 delegates could not pick a candidate” she said and added that it was planned that USC would help cull the candidates by having a debate with four Democrats and two Republicans. That cut out the independents, by discounting them.
“They eliminated my voice,” Culotti said, and added that the voice of Californians who are registered as independents was also eliminated.
Hermes said, “we’re dealing with an establishment that is controlling the narrative. Our news media is running the candidates.”
He quoted Plato, and argued the “illusion of choice,” which in this case is a myth told by the state to keep citizens aligned with the social order. “The Founding Fathers understood this,” he said. “I’m a conservative but I’ve been deleted from the polls.
“There’s a system in place,” he said, which eliminates everyone but Republicans and Democrats. “There are false polls and false rhetoric.”
Safarnegjad said, “We’re boxed into a two-party monopoly. We’re in a crisis.”
To change the system, won’t come from “parties and donors,” Safarnegjad said and urged people to look beyond parties and select someone who would work for them and not unions and big-money donors.
He said running for governor, he learned “if you want to be a Democrat or a Republican, you need large donors. You either come in corrupt or become corrupt.”
Culotti concluded, “No one wants to cancel a fair debate, but this wasn’t a fair debate. If you do not poll, you do not get on stage. The other metric was money. You had to raise enough money to be on stage.”