Ellis Campaign Releases MPT Records Showing Broadcaster Has Two Paths to a Four-Candidate Debate on October 6

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ELLIS CAMPAIGN CALLS FOR FULL PARTICIPATION IN OCTOBER 6, 2026 GUBERNATORIAL DEBATE

BALTIMORE, MD, September 9, 2026 — Green Party nominee for Governor Andy Ellis Wednesday called on Maryland Public Television (MPT) to include all four nominees on the November ballot in its October 6 gubernatorial debate. The Ellis Campaign released internal MPT records obtained under the Maryland Public Information Act  that show MPT can open the stage under its existing practices, and that what stands in the way is not its rules but politics.

For its May 19 Republican primary debate, MPT invited every candidate in the race. When responses lagged, Executive Vice President and COO Chuck Roberts personally called the holdouts, telling them “your participation would ensure the people of Maryland get a better picture of their electoral options for Governor this election cycle.” Three candidates ultimately took the stage: John Myrick, Shannon Wright, and Douglas Larcomb.

As Roberts later explained in an internal email, “with no polling data available from an outside source, all Republican candidates were invited, several times, to participate.” MPT’s own communications director, Tom Williams, acknowledged in July that the primary debate was an example where MPT “DID NOT follow our criteria for candidate participation.”

“MPT is a taxpayer-funded state agency. Their editorial policy says the public interest is of the highest importance, and we agree,” Ellis said. “When Marylanders go to vote this fall, they will see four tickets for governor. The people of Maryland deserve a full picture of their electoral options. MPT said so itself, when it was recruiting Republicans. The public interest is best served when Marylanders see all their choices and get to decide.”

MPT’s written guidelines also provide a path to full-participation.. The “significant candidacy” criteria state that “polls are one measure of voter interest” and that “substantial media coverage, financial resources beyond the candidate’s own personal resources, sizable volunteer efforts, or large turnouts at campaign stops may be evidence of significant voter interest.”

While these published criteria exist, MPT has provided no public explanation of how it evaluates candidates against them, and did not measure the three candidates on its May stage against that standard. But, according to MPT’s guidelines, a candidate’s presence on the stage is an indication of a significant candidacy.

“The Republican primary settles the question of discretion,” Ellis said. “MPT didn’t run those three candidates through its significant-candidacy criteria. It invited everyone and called the holdouts to urge them onto the stage. Now apply the written criteria to our candidacy compared to those three. We have raised more money and have more donors than the three of them combined. Our campaign has earned more media coverage than any of theirs.. By MPT’s own rules, ours is a significant candidacy. So any claim that MPT’s hands are tied is bogus.”

The records suggest the real obstacle sits in Annapolis. In January, after Ellis proposed doubling MPT’s state funding and advocated for House Bill 101, the open debates bill, MPT President and CEO Steven Schupak wrote to colleagues that “the Gov’s office might believe we had something to do with this proposed bill” and asked whether MPT should “proactively” tell state officials it had nothing to do with it.

Another email in the same thread from Richard Bodorff, Chair of the Maryland Public Broadcasting Commission, urged getting word to “our principal supporters (the Governor, Senator King, and our champion in the house)” that “we didn’t put Ellis up to this,” adding, “Wouldn’t want any of our friends to think we were behind this.” 

MPT’s own editorial policy commits the broadcaster to “shielding its editorial process from political pressure or improper influence.”

“Senior leadership fretting about the political implications of a campaign proposal to increase funding for public television is not shielding the editorial process from political pressure,” Ellis said. “I can only imagine the kind of pressure they would face from the Democratic Governor and the Democrats in the General Assembly if they applied their editorial standards fairly and allowed a Green Party candidate — or others — on the debate stage.”

Four tickets will appear on the November 3 ballot: Wes Moore and Aruna Miller (Democratic), Dan Cox and Rob Krop (Republican), Andy Ellis and Owen Silverman Andrews (Green), and Cathy White and Cathy Permut (Working Class Party).

The campaign is asking MPT to confirm invitations to all four candidates for October 6. Ellis will appear under any format and any moderator MPT selects. The MPIA records are available to members of the press upon request, and Marylanders can sign the campaign’s open debates petition at gogreen2026.com/debate.

Documents associated with the campaign’s PIA requests are available in our document repository.

About the Ellis/Andrews Campaign

Andy Ellis and Owen Silverman Andrews are running for Governor and Lt. Governor of Maryland on the Green Party ticket. Get more info at gogreen2026.com.

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