Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Nevada candidates ghosting voters by refusing to debate

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Reality Based Training Center

Christopher DeVargas

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak and Sheriff Joseph Lombardo pose for a photo at the future site of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Reality Based Training Center, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020. The multi-jurisdictional state-of-the-art training facility will allow law enforcement and first responders to practice real world scenarios in a controlled environment.

As two debates between Nevada’s top-of-the-ticket candidates were shelved this week, the trend of contenders ducking such forums across the country may be eroding one of America’s longest-lasting political traditions, experts say.

On Monday, October debates between Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Adam Laxalt and incumbent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, as well as between GOP gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo and Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak were scrapped after Laxalt and Lombardo missed the deadline to accept.

The events would have been hosted by Reno-based KOLO-TV, the Reno Gazette Journal and the League of Women voters.

They’ve become the latest in a slew of midterm races across the country — from Pennsylvania and Georgia to Michigan and Arizona — where officials on both sides of the political aisle have declined debates. Election Day is Nov. 8.

For some Republicans, eschewing debates is a chance to sidestep a media structure some in the party deride as biased and align with former President Donald Trump, who has blasted the tradition. Some Democrats have pointed to raucous GOP debates from the primary season as a reason to avoid tangling with their opponents.

The move to disengage with one’s respective political rival is often a calculated risk, said Jacob Thompson, UNLV’s director of general education and undergraduate curriculum. The end result is a less-informed public that loses out on a chance to compare platforms between candidates.

“Politicians for the longest time have not liked debating,” said Thompson, the former coach of UNLV’s nationally recognized debate team who also played a role in orchestrating the 2016 presidential debate that took place on campus. “There is a challenge with debating that it is unscripted and you’re on stage. It’s risky business. You could make a gaffe that could potentially tank your candidacy, say something that offends an important constituent group. History is rife with examples of things like that happening.”

Debates can be especially pivotal for Nevada’s swing voters, where 640,961 are registered as nonpartisans, according to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office. That’s in addition to 172,449 Nevadans registered with the Libertarian Party, Independent American Party, or other party affiliation — key blocs that could help clinch the Senate and gubernatorial races, deemed by most analysts as among the most competitive in the country.

As it stands, the lone gubernatorial debate will be hosted by the Nevada Independent on Oct. 2 and aired on KSNV-TV, Channel 3, the next day. There is no scheduled debate for the U.S. Senate race.

It wasn’t until Trump’s rise in the Republican party that other conservatives and some Democrats joined in on the trend at a broad level, Thompson said. The former president’s attitude trickled down the political ranks, and has now become a popular method to discredit legacy media, which often moderates such forums.

That was the tenor of Laxalt’s campaign, which said after Monday’s announcement it had declined the debate because it had instead accepted invitations to debates moderated by “neutral” outlets Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nevada Newsmakers.

The former, which owns NBC affiliates in Reno and Las Vegas and is the second-largest television station operator in the U.S., has been accused of running “must-run” segments often containing conservative talking points.

“We have accepted televised statewide debate offers with two respected, neutral Nevada media outlets,” campaign spokesman Brian Freimuth said in a statement. “We hope that Catherine Cortez Masto will stop hiding and agree to at least one of them. Voters deserve to hear Cortez Masto’s defense of the disastrous Biden agenda that she has become a rubber stamp for in the U.S. Senate.”

Elizabeth Ray, spokesperson for Lombardo’s campaign, said in an email to the Sun last month that her candidate is committed to debating. That includes a candidate forum with business leaders in theReno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce, which chamber leaders stressed would be an interview session with business owners and not a head-to-head debate.

One official with the chamber, speaking anonymously because the group is nonpartisan, said a date with Sisolak has been scheduled, but the group is still working to finalize a time with Lombardo.

Additionally, Ray said late last week that Lombardo accepted an invitation to a debate Oct. 20 hosted by the Elko Broadcasting Company. But that debate won’t happen because Sisolak declined, stating he had already accepted invitations to two other debates, including the canceled KOLO/RGJ debate, campaign spokeswoman Reeves Oyster told the Sun.

“Sheriff Lombardo looks forward to returning to Elko to continue sharing his vision for our state and discussing the top issues facing voters in the community,” Ray said in a Twitter post. “... Rural voters deserve to hear from both candidates, and our campaign is excited to accept this debate invitation in Elko.”

Republican challenger and celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, running for Senate in Pennsylvania, has criticized his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, for dodging the debate stage as he continues to recover from a stroke. Fetterman said last week he would participate in one debate before the Nov. 8 election.

In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker are still working through the details of what a debate might look like, though they appear to be inching closer to a deal. And in Arizona, Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Katie Hobbs has declined a televised debate with Republican Kari Lake.

Despite such skepticism, veteran political consultant Terry Sullivan defended debates as “the one forum where candidates are forced into answering questions that they don’t want to answer.”

“They’re not going to do it in their TV commercials,” added Sullivan, who managed GOP Sen. Jim DeMint’s 2004 bid in South Carolina and handled media for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential effort. “And in stump appearances, press conferences, they can evade, they can dodge.”

And sometimes, Sullivan added, it’s the media coverage of what happens onstage, rather than the back-and-forth itself, that can make a bigger impression.

UNLV’s Thompson agreed, calling debates the closest thing voters get to what amounts to a job interview among the candidates.

“You get a chance to see the candidates acting naturally and you get to see them under pressure,” Thompson said. “Debates are the one opportunity that voters have to see the candidates in an unfiltered and unmediated environment.”

In order to avoid candidates fretting over mediation bias, Thompson said, one potential solution could be for Nevada to form statewide debate coalitions, such as those in Utah and Washington.

In those states, news organizations partner with retired or active politicos and academic institutions to provide a uniform debate platform. That way, Thompson said, the rules are the same across the board and a video stream can be fed to any organization that wants to broadcast such an event.

“If a candidate says no, they’re saying no to statewide media coverage on every media outlet, and then there is an hourlong free television commercial for their opponent, because the debate will happen regardless,” he said.

A Sept. 13 Emerson College poll showed Laxalt leading Cortez Masto 42% to 41%, with 4% of respondents saying they would vote for someone else and 11% undecided. In that same poll, Sisolak and Lombardo were tied, receiving 40% apiece.

That’s better than expected news for the two Republicans, as many political strategists believe polling tends to underrepresent conservatives, Thompson said.

“If they’re ahead in the polls, they feel like they’re probably way ahead,” Thompson said. “And if they’re behind in the polls, they probably feel like they’re at least even right now in many of these races.”

Thompson added that could further incentivize candidates to be uncooperative when it comes to debating. After all, why take the risk when you’re the presumed front-runner?

“When you’re behind, you want to debate a hundred times in front of as many audiences as possible,” Thompson said. “When you’re ahead, you don’t want to debate at all.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.