On the evening of March 23, the University of Southern California cancelled its March 24 gubernatorial debate. See this story. The sponsors had invited one candidate, Matt Mahan, and excluded Xavier Beccera, even though Becerra led Mahan in all of the recent polls.

The University issued this statement: “USC vigorously defends the independence, objectivity, and integrity of USC Professor Christian Grose, whose data-driven candidate viability formula is based on extensive research and enjoys broad academic support. At the same time, 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. 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.”