CNN is hitting back at Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina after she accused the network of establishing unfair criteria for its GOP debate in September.
On Wednesday, Fiorina’s campaign sent out an email that called on the Republican National Committee to pressure CNN to change its format.
Fiorina wants CNN to alter the rules that will split up the debate in two parts: one segment will feature candidates in the top 10 of an average of national polls, and the other segment will include another seven candidates polling outside of the top 10.
Candidates who don’t make it on stage with the top 10 candidates are perceived as less likely to win the party’s nomination, and Fiorina’s national poll numbers only recently broke into that range. Earlier polls will hurt Fiorina’s chances of making it onto CNN’s stage with the top 10 candidates, and some of those earlier polls will be used.
Specifically, Fiorina argues that CNN will be using more polls from before the Aug. 6 GOP debate, when she was low in the polls, and just two from after the debate, when she surged.
But a spokesperson for CNN told the Washington Examiner media desk that it will not be changing its rules because if it did, it would be violating federal law.
“CNN published the criteria for the CNN debate on May 20,” the spokesperson said. “It will encompass polling data from three weeks prior to the first debate and five weeks following. Federal Election Commission guidelines make it clear that these criteria cannot be changed after they have been published. We believe that our approach is a fair and effective way to deal with the highest number of candidates we have ever encountered.”
CNN did publish online the criteria it will follow for admission into both parts of the debate. But it’s unclear whether adjusting that criteria ahead of the debate on Sep. 16 would be a violation of FEC law.
The rules governing debates say that TV news outlets “may stage candidate debates … provided that [the networks] are not owned or controlled by a political party, political committee or candidate.” The rules also say that debate hosts “must use pre-established objective criteria to determine which candidates may participate in a debate.”
Fox News hosted a debate in early August that was similar in format to CNN’s and broken into two parts, though CNN’s will be different because the two segments will be back-to-back. Eight days ahead of the debate, Fox changed the criteria for its second-tier debate, dropping an initial requirement that participating candidates must poll above 1 percent in an average of national polls.
Sarah Flores, Fiorina’s deputy campaign manager, pointed to that as proof that CNN can also change its debate criteria if it wants.
“Maybe CNN should call Fox,” Flores said. “They changed their rules and I didn’t see the FEC police stop the debate.” She said that Fox “has set a precedent that you can certainly change rules to take into account changed circumstances.”
As for the RNC putting any pressure on CNN, it looks like that won’t happen either.
Ahead of the first debate, GOP candidates Rick Santorum and Lindsey Graham publicly complained that the RNC should not have allowed national polls to dictate who would be included on Fox’s top-10 debate stage. National polls, they argued, placed a premium on name recognition.
The RNC did not budge.
“The RNC had great success creating a more orderly debate process but ultimately the criteria is legally left to the networks to determine,” said a spokesperson for the RNC. “CNN’s debate parameters were released in May in order ensure there was notice and awareness of the criteria well in advance of the debate.”
Per the FEC rules, the networks which hosts a debate cannot be “owned or controlled by a political party.”
A spokesman for the FEC would not comment on legalities for this article.
