Two third-party congressional candidates missed the cut for Utah’s 3rd and 4th Congressional District debates after the Utah Debate Commission quietly changed the rules at a meeting with no publicly available minutes or notes.
Before this year, a candidate needed 10% in the commission's pre-debate poll after accounting for the poll's margin of error. If the margin of error was 4%, for example, a candidate needed 6% to qualify. The commission's advisory board dropped that adjustment at its Aug. 25 meeting. Candidates now need a flat 10% to qualify. Candidates were told of the change by email on Sept. 3.
Libertarian Michael Stoddard received 6.5% in the pre-debate poll, and independent Steven Burt got 5.7%. Under the old rule, both would have qualified.
Burt said he was disappointed by the change.
"The fact that I would have made the cut in years past makes the Commission's decision extra disappointing," he said. "It's hard not to interpret the decision to exclude the margin of error as a deliberate effort to exclude viable third party and unaffiliated candidates, which is exactly what has happened here."
Stoddard did not respond to a request for comment.
The commission's charter says candidates who "demonstrate a meaningful level of support" will be given the opportunity to participate.
There are no minutes, notes, agendas or other materials available from the Aug. 25 meeting, though the commission is primarily funded through taxpayer dollars.
The charter says notice of meetings "will typically be provided at least two business days prior to the meeting." If notice was given, it was not posted publicly, and candidates had no chance to weigh in on the revised rules.
The 14-member advisory board that made the change includes representatives of media organizations and public colleges and universities. The leaders of the Senate's majority and minority caucuses each nominate one member.
Representatives for the Hinckley Institute at the University of Utah, which oversees the debates, did not comment for this story.
Since the commission began hosting televised debates in 2014, third-party and independent candidates have qualified for the stage 10 times. Libertarian J. Robert Latham did it twice: in 2020, running for Congress in the 2nd District, and in 2024, running for governor. None of the 10 reached 10% in pre-debate polling, so all of them would have been excluded under the new rule.
The commission began as a bipartisan, independent organization with a Republican and a Democrat as co-chairs. Its advisory board then had nearly three dozen members, including representatives of Utah media organizations and colleges and universities, as well as business leaders, lawmakers and community members. The board set the schedule and rules for debates.
In 2024, the Legislature appropriated $225,000 to help fund the commission. The rest of its operating budget came from sponsorships and donations.
The commission and the Utah GOP clashed in recent years. In 2022, several Republican candidates refused to take part in pre-primary debates after party leaders demanded a say in choosing moderators and questions. That same year, Republican Rep. Burgess Owens pulled out of a debate hours before it began because he objected to the moderator.
During the 2025 legislative session, Republican Rep. Nelson Abbott introduced HB557, which would have replaced the commission with a new body, the Utah Debate Committee. The 11-member committee, made up of political appointees and housed at Utah Valley University, would have coordinated and hosted debates, decided who participates, picked moderators and chosen topics.
The bill was a priority for legislative leaders, who listed its $600,000 cost among the items they planned to fund in the budget. The bill was defeated in a House committee in the final days of the session, but leaders put the $600,000 in the budget anyway, with intent language that tasked the Hinckley Institute and the Herbert Institute at UVU to come up with a plan for establishing the commission, which would be housed at the University of Utah.
