Third party Illinois candidates claim collusion prevented debate
appearances
[October 19, 2026]
By Sean Reed | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – Third-party candidates in multiple statewide races
are criticizing their leading opponents and a Chicago area PBS station
after being excluded from the only debates in their races ahead of
election day.
Both Independent party gubernatorial candidate Collin Corbett, a former
Republican strategist, and American Center Party U.S. Senate candidate
Whitfield Harrington were excluded from their races’ only debates on
Chicago-area station WTTW.
The candidates said a change in rules that would’ve made them eligible
to appear became moot due to polling released, which they say was funded
in-part by Democratic incumbent Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
WTTW loosened the eligibility requirements in the weeks leading up to
the debates, partly because no public polling had been released to show
how much support they had compared to their opponents.
Corbett was skeptical of that rule change after Chicago News Weekly
shared the results of a poll for each statewide race by Public Policy
Polling – which he said is Democratic party-aligned.
Corbett accused the Chicago magazine and the station hosting the debate
of having coordinated with the Pritzker campaign based on the purchasing
of ads in their publication on multiple occasions leading up to the poll
being conducted.
The poll found he had 6% of the support among the 569 respondents to the
survey.
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“I was never going to make the debate stage. Even when WTTW relented
and loosened a couple of their restrictions and it seemed like there
might be a ray of sunshine,” Corbett said. “Somehow they magically
had money to pay a national pollster to poll not just this race, but
all the statewide races. It's a coincidence that J.B. Pritzker had
the back page full-page ad in the last two editions of their
magazine.”
The WTTW candidate forum rules for eligibility are publicly
available on their website, requiring each candidate to have at
least 15% public support based on polling conducted after the
primary election – regardless of if they appear on the ballot or
not.
The webpage also says “a candidate, campaign, political party,
political action committee or any person or entity that financially
supports the candidate’s campaign” can’t have commissioned the poll.
Corbett said he disagreed with being excluded from the debate based
on the rules presented by the station.
“I would argue that WTTW's rules state that the poll has to be paid
for by an independent outlet and done by a non-partisan or
independent polling firm and neither of those two things happened,”
Corbett said.
A news release from the Senate candidate, who wasn’t listed among
the poll’s results that included 15% undecided, similarly referred
to Pritzker’s advertising with the magazine to claim that the
polling wasn’t commissioned independently. |
