INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

CNN’s Chris Cillizza Snubs Andrew Yang From His Democratic 2020 Power Rankings

By Tyler MacDonald
Published on: 07:29 PST, Aug 23, 2019

Not unlike MSNBC’s exclusion of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang for their presidential candidate chart, per The Inquisitr, CNN’s Chris Cillizza released his power rankings of the current 2020 field and excluded the rising serial entrepreneur. Although Yang has no political experience and is considered a long-shot to win the nomination, he appears to be surging — RealClearPolitics puts him at seventh polling average with 1.8 percent behind Cory Booker’s 2.2 percent.

Below Yang is Tulsi Gabbard and Julian Castro at 1.4 percent, Amy Klobuchar at 1.2 percent, Tom Steyer at 0.8 percent, and Marianne Williamson at 0.8 percent.

Castro, Klobuchar, and Steyer were all ranked higher than Yang despite lower polling support, and Steyer has yet to make the debates, as Yang has, although Cillizza notes he only needs one more poll to do so.

Per The Inquisitr, Yang is set to appear on CNN’s climate change town hall next month alongside Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Booker, and Klobuchar.

Yang’s exclusion is reminiscent of Sanders’ complaints about his own coverage — he believes that the media short-changed him in 2016, and FAIR supports his assertion. The organization reports that The Washington Post published 16 negative stories about Sanders in 16 hours back in 2016, and also makes efforts to portray Sanders’ fact-based statements as false. Sanders also attacked the media recently for its purported unfair coverage of his 2020 campaign.

As for Yang, he has been excluded from political charts many times before, despite the inclusion of lesser-performing candidates. Per The Inquisitr, other candidates, such as Marianne Williamson and Mike Gravel — the latter who has since dropped out of the race — were also removed from select political charts.

As Yang is an outsider, his exclusion isn’t a huge surprise. He has also been critical of the media, its focus on spectacle, and its portrayal of Donald Trump. During the H3 podcast with husband and wife duo Ethan Klein and Hila Klein — available on YouTube — Yang revealed that debate attacks are sometimes coordinated with networks before the events.

“You know one thing I’ll share with you all is that some of the campaigns are in touch with the TV network ahead of time to talk about what sort of attack they wanna level on the stage,” he said.

“The campaign says ‘Hey, um, we’re gonna make this attack against Biden,’ and then the network goes, ‘OK, like, we get it.’ And then they help create that opportunity.”

Per The Inquisitr, Yang has also criticized the relationship between the media and Trump, suggesting they both need each other and calling it an example of politics as a “reality TV show.”

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