California voters were supposed to see a gubernatorial debate this evening (well... early evening -- for some reason it was scheduled to run at 5:00 P.M., when most people aren't even home from work yet, but whatever...), but it has now been cancelled. The University of Southern California announced this morning that it was cancelling the debate due to criticism over who would have been allowed on stage and who would have been excluded.

The California governor's race is an unusual one for a couple of different reasons. First, there will be no incumbent, since sitting Governor Gavin Newsom cannot run again due to term limits. So the field is wide open for both major political parties. Second, because of the dynamics of the race and the odd primary system California uses, the outcome of the race might put two Republican candidates on the ballot for the general election in November, with zero Democratic candidates. That is an unthinkable outcome for a state that is deep blue (Democrats outnumber Republicans by at least 60/40 in the state). And thirdly, while this race is important, very few people in California are paying much attention to it at all -- which is odd. It might be due to neither party running an obvious rock-star of a candidate who essentially clears the field in the primaries. But for whatever reason, most California voters have yet to tune in to the race at all. Which is why a televised debate might have been important.

Let's take that last one first. There are a few states in the country where it is incredibly expensive to run for a statewide office. This is due to there being multiple large cities, each with their own media markets. Politicians running in small states with only one large city can run ads on that city's television stations and expect them to cover the whole state. Politicians in places like California (and Texas, and Florida, and a few other large states) face having to buy ads in a whole bunch of different (and expensive) media markets just to get their message out to all the voters in the state. California has 9 of the top 50 most-populous U.S. cities (cities with roughly 400,000 people or more) within its borders. I say all of this to explain one big reason why the voters really have yet to tune in. The only candidate of the pack who is currently running ads (that I personally have seen, which may not be representative of much of anything, I admit) is Tom Steyer. He can afford to, because he is a billionaire who is self-financing his own campaign. And he has absolutely flooded the airwaves. This is why tonight's debate might have given some of the other candidates some necessary media exposure which (perhaps) might have moved the needle for them in the polling.

There are 10 major candidates in the race for governor, which includes two Republicans and eight Democrats. The debate hosts set forth criteria that had to be met to be included on the stage. Only six made the cut. The other four (all Democrats) complained. And they got a lot of support from their fellow Golden State Democrats, which increased the pressure on the hosts of the debate (U.S.C. and some ABC television stations) to include all 10 candidates.

The dynamics of where the cut happened gave the candidates who were excluded an excellent chance to "play the race card," because of how things worked out. All six candidates who made the cut are White (five men and one woman). All four candidates who were excluded were people of color.

From a poll released last week, here is where the candidates stand. The first two names are the Republicans, all the others are Democrats:

17 percent -- Steve Hilton

16 -- Chad Bianco

13 -- Katie Porter

13 -- Eric Swalwell

10 -- Tom Steyer

5 -- Xavier Becerra

4 -- Matt Mahan

4 -- Antonio Villaraigosa

1 -- Betty Yee

1 -- Tony Thurmond

You might expect that the top five candidates in this poll (all the ones polling in double digits) would have been the ones to make the cut for inclusion, but you would be wrong. Matt Mahan made the cut, but Xavier Becerra didn't. Mahan, the current mayor of San Jose, entered the race late and made a big splash when he did so. He was lauded by the media as a centrist Democrat who would provide an alternative to all the progressive candidates running. Because San Jose sits smack-dab in the middle of Silicon Valley, Mahan raked in an impressive (and almost immediate) haul in campaign donations from lots of people in the tech community. But his polling has never yet lived up to the hype in the media. Of the four excluded candidates, two (Becerra and Villaraigosa) are Latino, one (Thurmond) is Black, and one (Yee) is Asian-American. And just for the record (and to his credit), Mahan called yesterday for the debate to be thrown open to all 10 candidates (a position that was backed up by many other California Democrats as well -- it was not just the excluded candidates who were pushing for this).

U.S.C. insists that the criteria it used to decide who got cut had nothing to do with race. It is a combination (according to the political science professor who created it) of "polling and fund-raising data and considered the length of time that a candidate has been in the race." He explained that "research showing that fund-raising intensity, considered over time and in relation to other candidates, is a central predictor of viability in a primary election."

But it still doesn't look all that fair, since Becerra is out-polling Mahan, who is tied with Villaraigosa. Including one but not the other two was a bad choice, plain and simple. The debate criteria could have been adjusted so that either Mahan wasn't included (relying solely on strength in polling) or it could have been adjusted to include both Latino men (by softening the polling criteria), but picking the one White guy while cutting the two Latinos certainly does seem exclusionary in the extreme -- especially in a state that prides itself on multiculturalism. It is still fairly early in the campaign (voters won't vote until June), and there are other debates scheduled which could have had higher criteria to limit the field on the stage. The next debate is scheduled for April 22nd, and as things stand will only include Hilton, Bianco, Swalwell, Porter, and Steyer, by using the criteria of "polling above five percent."

State Democrats are panicking to various degrees over the fact that they might be completely shut out on the November ballot -- with no write-in candidates allowed. That would guarantee that California will be run by a Republican governor for the next few years, which is seen as completely unacceptable. But our "jungle primary" that only allows the top two candidates in the primary (regardless of party) is to blame (which I have written about previously). Republican voters only have two candidates to choose from, and so far GOP voters have been splitting their preferences almost perfectly evenly between the two. Because there are so many Democrats running, none of them have consolidated enough voter support to pass the two GOP candidates in the polls. This has led to a situation where the chance of two Republicans winning the primary is currently somewhere between 1-in-5 and 1-in-4 (there's even a handy site where you can check on such predictions, for those interested).

This has all led for calls from the state Democratic Party for the lower-polling candidates to drop out. So far, only one has done so (Ian Calderon). The others refuse, on the grounds that they could catch fire and see a big jump in the polls any day now. But to do so, they'd likely have to have a stellar debate performance that provided some zippy soundbites, which could have launched their public profile enough that voters started to get interested in them. Being excluded from the debate stage means they likely won't get that chance.

This whole fiasco is sad, because now California voters will have to wait for another month to see the gubernatorial candidates debate. By that point, perhaps a few others will be up on the airwaves statewide with some ads, which could affect the dynamic of the race. As things stand, there are still a lot of people who are answering the polls as "undecided" -- in fact, in many polls "undecided" beats out all of the actual candidates.

Personally, I was looking forward to watching tonight's debate. However, that won't be possible now. And I know I'm not the only California voter who has been disappointed by this whole fiasco.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant