A third-party candidate for Virginia governor, Princess Blanding, interrupted the debate between former Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin Tuesday by shouting that she had been shut out of the debate.
Blanding, an activist and educator who was not invited to participate, interrupted from the audience after the first 10 minutes of the debate. The station went to a commercial break.
“All I’m listening to around me is people talking about their timeshares and their investments, when we have people who don’t have anywhere to lay their heads,” Blanding said in an interview after she left the Northern Virginia Community College auditorium. “We have been told to trust the system, and the system is meant to keep third-party candidates oppressed.”
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She told The Associated Press earlier in the day that the Chamber of Commerce had invited her to sit in the audience and meet with the press afterward.
“The way that felt to me was, yes, you can come and get on the bus like everybody else ... but you're going to sit in the back of the bus. I met the requirements just like they did to get on the ballot, however, I'm being blocked,” she said.
Blanding is running as a Liberation Party candidate, a political party that she helped establish in 2020, according to The Associated Press.
