Andrew Yang, 2020 candidate, questions CNN’s ‘odd and confusing’ poll coverage

Presidential hopeful Andrew Yang spoke up Thursday after being omitted from a CNN graphic listing the contenders currently polling the best among Democratic candidates.

Mr. Yang sent an email to supporters taking issue with a recent CNN segment that touted the results of a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.

Conducted last week, the polling ranked Mr. Yang, a tech entrepreneur, as the sixth-most popular choice among fellow Democratic presidential candidates. Three percent of Democrats surveyed by Quinnipiac said they support Mr. Yang’s candidacy, effectively placing him in the poll behind former Vice President Joseph R. Biden (32%); Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat (19%); Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont independent (15%); Sen. Kamala Harris, California Democrat (7%); and Pete Buttigieg, the Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana (5%).

CNN aired a graphic of six leading Democratic candidates while reporting on the poll but left out Mr. Yang. The image showed the top five contenders, per Quinnipiac’s latest polling, followed by Beto O’Rourke, a former congressman for Texas who placed lower in the survey due to receiving the support of only 1% of respondents.

“I’ll admit I’ve never been a politician before, but the treatment of our rising national poll results has been odd and confusing,” Mr. Yang said in the campaign email.

“The trend of this campaign is already very positive — think where we could be if we received the same level of coverage as folks like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden,” Mr. Yang said.

A spokesperson for CNN did not immediately return a message requesting comment.

Randy Jones, Mr. Yang’s campaign spokesman, told Business Insider on Thursday that the network has apologized and said it would no longer use the image, the website reported.

“When the inexcusable graphics were brought to our attention we immediately reached out to CNN. They responded quickly, pledged to remove the incorrect graphics and offered a sincere apology. We have had a productive working relationship with the network thus far and expect that to continue,” Mr. Jones said in a statement, the outlet reported.

Mr. Yang, 44, and nine other presidential hopefuls are set to participate in the next two debates organized by the Democratic National Committee after meeting a Wednesday deadline to satisfy requirements set by the DNC. Candidates needed to receive contributions from 130,000 individual donors and poll at or above 2% percent in four DNC-approved polls to reserve a spot in the next debates.