ATLANTA — (AP) — Ted Budd has skipped four Republican primary debates in his bid for a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina. GOP candidates for governor in Ohio, Nevada and Nebraska have also refused to engage with their opponents from the debate podium.
And on Tuesday, Herschel Walker is expected to miss a second debate against his Republican rivals for a crucial U.S. Senate seat after skipping the first one.
As the most competitive phase of the midterm primary season unfolds this week, many candidates for leading offices — often Republicans — are abandoning the time-honored tradition of debating their rivals before Election Day.
For some gaffe-prone candidates such as Walker, avoiding the debate stage reduces the chance of an embarrassing moment. For others, it’s an opportunity to snub a media ecosystem they find elitist and cast themselves in the mold of former President Donald Trump, who made a show of missing some debates during the 2016 campaign.
The Republican National Committee is already moving toward withdrawing from the 2024 presidential debates, though the ultimate decision will likely fall on whoever emerges as the party’s nominee.
But some of the Republicans who are still engaging in the process say that skipping debates could ultimately leave the eventual nominees vulnerable in a general election, unprepared to answer tough questions or engage with rivals in a way that could appeal to voters beyond the party base.
“If you can’t get on the stage and debate fellow Republicans, how the heck are you going to debate with Raphael Warnock in the general election?” asked Latham Saddler, a Navy veteran and former Trump administration official who is among five Republicans challenging Walker, referring to the Democratic incumbent.
“Usually if you’re hiding, you’re hiding for a reason,” Saddler said in an interview.
Walker holds a commanding lead over his rivals heading into the May 24 primary. His campaign has not granted The Associated Press an interview despite repeated requests, including for this story. But after facing criticism from rivals at the first Georgia Republican Senate debate in April, including about his absence, Walker told North Georgia radio station Access WDUN that his opponents were jealous.
“Because right now Herschel’s going to win that seat,” he said during an April 20 appearance on the program “Newsroom.” “They can’t win it, so they’re going to the old politics where people are tired of that. They want what people are going to do for their state of Georgia, and they can’t do anything but complain.”
Though many of those who have skipped debates are Republican, some Democrats have followed a similar strategy. In Pennsylvania, which holds primary elections on May 17, Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman skipped a debate last month, saying he chose to participate in three other debates because they will have wider reach on television.
A spokesman for Budd, Jonathan Felts, has said instead of attending debates, Budd was focused on finishing his tour of North Carolina counties so he could speak directly to voters.
In Walker’s case, his reticence extends beyond debating. He doesn’t widely publicize his campaign stops and limits appearances mostly to conservative news outlets and friendly audiences. Campaign spokeswoman Mallory Blount said in an email last week that Walker had conducted more than 105 interviews.
“The suggestion that Herschel is not accessible is a lie,” she said. “He does interviews and takes questions from thousands of Georgians as he travels across the state every week.”
But when Walker does speak, awkward moments can ensue.
He has wrongly referred to the late congressman John Lewis as a senator and said the voting rights activist’s eponymous election bill — the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — “doesn’t fit what John Lewis stood for.”
Walker recently cast doubt on evolution at a church gathering by questioning…
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