Ala Stanford drops out of WHYY congressional candidates debate two hours before it was scheduled to begin

Congressional hopeful Ala Stanford on Tuesday morning announced she was dropping out of a WHYY candidates debate two hours before it was scheduled to begin, saying her campaign could not agree with the public radio station on a format for the debate and criticizing her opponents in the race for “misogynistic attacks.”

“I have never been afraid of a hard room,” Stanford said in a statement. “After engaging in good faith with WHYY, we could not reach terms on a format that would deliver the serious accountability voters in PA-03 deserve. I am not willing to lend my name to a conversation that falls short of that standard, and so we will not be participating today.”

Stanford’s campaign manager emailed the announcement to reporters at about 10 a.m., two hours before the debate on WHYY’s Studio 2 was supposed to take place. It would have been the highest-profile live and on-air debate featuring all three top contenders in the race so far.

In her statement, Stanford did not clarify what problems she had with the debate format. She also did not provide details on any attacks from her opponents in the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District.

The top contenders in the race include Stanford, State Sen. Chris Rabb, and State Sen. Sharif Street. Stanford, a first-time political candidate, is the only woman on the ballot.

“Philadelphians deserve a real dialogue on the issues impacting our families,” Stanford said. “Instead, this race has been marred by misogynistic attacks and lies from both of my opponents. That conduct has no place in our politics, and it must end.”

A Stanford spokesperson declined to comment beyond her written statement.

Shortly before the debate began, WHYY executive producer and host Kevin McCorry addressed the crowd.

“Our producers engaged her campaign in good faith,” McCorry said. “We were flexible with her requests. At no time did they say, ‘If X doesn’t change, we’re backing out.’ All of our interactions with all the candidates kept three things paramount: fairness to all the candidates that we invited, holding ourselves to the highest standards of journalistic integrity, and delivering a program that would enrich and inform our audiences.”

Stanford’s surprise announcement comes less than three weeks before the May 19 primary, and it follows a series of missteps for her campaign, including the revelation that a staffer used artificial intelligence to help answer a candidates’ questionnaire and her stumbling through a question about immigration enforcement in an interview with NBC10.

A recent Inquirer report on her stewardship of the Black Doctors Consortium also found that the organization omitted details about her income that were required to be included on nonprofit tax forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

» READ MORE: Congressional hopeful Ala Stanford’s Black Doctors Consortium was fueled by $13 million in public funding

Street spokesperson Anthony Campisi accused Stanford of dropping out to avoid tough questions regarding those episodes, adding that “her campaign is in free fall.”

“Rather than answer these questions in a debate that’s aired on radio and television, she appears to be taking her ball and going home, which is not what Philadelphians expect from their member of Congress,” Campisi said Wednesday. “Philadelphians deserve a member of Congress who is ready to fight for them and against Donald Trump, not someone who runs from a fight.”

A WHYY employee coordinating the debate emailed the campaigns on Tuesday regarding format and said the station would prefer if the candidates did not use notes for visual reasons because it was going to be broadcast on TV, according to a copy of the email obtained by The Inquirer.

“We prefer no notes because this will also be televised Wednesday night but because another campaign asked, we will allow them and leave that visual decision to you,” the email said.

Spokespersons for Street and Rabb said they did not request to use notes.

“I show up everywhere,” Rabb said in a statement. “That is my ethic and my tradition regardless of who’s in the room because as a candidate and public servant that is my responsibility as someone who takes accountability seriously.”

In her statement, Stanford, a physician, noted she has taken the Hippocratic Oath “to first do no harm.”

“I challenge everyone in this race to join me in promoting the kind of spirited, but serious and meaningful dialogue Philadelphians should expect from those asking to serve,” she said. “In the meantime, I will be where I have always been — on doorsteps, in church basements, and on the corners of the wards that built me.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

More on the 3rd Congressional District race

• Philly’s three-way fight to replace Dwight Evans in the U.S. House enters a volatile final stretch

• Meet the Democrats vying to replace Dwight Evans in Congress

• Philly’s competitive U.S. House race narrows — but big questions loom

• Sharif Street could become Pa.’s first Muslim member of Congress. But don’t make assumptions about his politics.

• Chris Rabb is trying to be the left’s standard-bearer as he runs for Congress. Will progressives rally around him?

• Ala Stanford is banking on a healthcare message to break through crowded Philly primary for Congress

• Ala Stanford and Chris Rabb are trading accusations as AIPAC becomes a flash point in Philly’s U.S. House race

• After a staffer allegedly took $161K, Chris Rabb rebounds to lead fundraising in Philly’s congressional race

• How two Philly congressional candidates are quietly guiding super PACs in plain sight