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...
A popular social media conspiracy theory about a recent cluster of hantavirus cases claims that the word “hanta” means “scam,” “fraud,” or “nonsense” in “Hebrew slang.” That’s more or less where t...