TV Station Opens Door to Including Independent Corbett in Debate
Independent gubernatorial candidate Collin Corbett holds a news conference outside of the WTTW Studios in Chicago Tuesday. (Photo: Corbett campaign)
The only scheduled debate in the race for Governor could include all three candidates on the ballot after all.
WTTW, Chicago’s public television station, is set to hold the only joint appearance between Governor JB Pritzker and his Republican opponent, former State Senator Darren Bailey, on October 13.
The original rules essentially excluded Independent candidate Collin Corbett as he was not a nominee of “a political party recognized under state law.”
WTTW News Director Jay Smith told The Illinoize Tuesday the station had removed the party-specific language from its debate criteria.
“WTTW News has established objective, viewpoint-neutral criteria for participation in general election candidate forums to give viewers a substantive understanding of the candidates and their positions on the issues,” Smith said in a statement. “Candidates who meet those criteria will be invited to participate.”
(Disclosures: Corbett is a personal friend who is treated like any other candidate and I occasionally appear on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight program.)
Corbett held a news conference in front of WTTW’s studios Tuesday to protest his exclusion from the debate. He said in a livestream Tuesday night his campaign had sent a “demand letter” to WTTW asking the party specific language be removed from the criteria.
“We contacted them and they still completely ignored us,” Corbett said. “We learned about the debate from the media, we learned about the debate rules that would determine who would be on stage from the media. It was clear from the start it was their goal to exclude us from that forum stage.”
Corbett is not yet guaranteed a spot on the debate stage, though. WTTW’s criteria still require him to have 15% support in a public poll.
If there is no public polling, Corbett may get in the debate.
From WTTW’s updated rules:
(If there is no polling that qualifies, candidate must meet all of 1, 2, and 3). WTTW News reserves the right to add candidates it deems newsworthy at its discretion.
No third party or Independent candidate for Governor has cleared 15% in Illinois since 1912.
The Pritzker campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the change to WTTW’s rules.
Bailey campaign manager Jose Durbin downplayed Corbett’s campaign.
“Collin is a nobody,” he said. “It’s pointless to have him on stage.”
Durbin proceeded to accuse, without evidence, that the billionaire Pritzker had paid off Corbett to run as a spoiler in the race.
It appears WTTW hasn’t always held firm to its 15% threshold in their own rules. The station hosted a Chicago School Board President forum Tuesday night. Four candidates were on the stage and only one cleared the threshold, though the only publicly released poll was paid for by one of the campaigns. A 2023 Chicago mayoral forum also included candidates that did not reach the 15% threshold.
