Hogan, Jealous agree to a single debate
One-hour exchange to be televised Sept. 24 on MPT, WBAL, WJLA
After more than a month of negotiations, the campaigns of Republican Gov. Larry Hogan and Democratic challenger Ben Jealous agreed to participate in a single, hourlong televised debate on Sept. 24, the two camps announced jointly Thursday.
The campaigns said the debate would be moderated and broadcast statewide by Maryland Public Television at 7 p.m. It will also be broadcast by WBAL in Baltimore and WJLA in Washington. The panel of questioners will be drawn from various media outlets, including The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post.
Hogan, seeking to become the first Republican re-elected as governor in six decades, and Jealous, a former NAACP president, are facing off in the Nov. 6 general election.
This year’s debate schedule is more abbreviated than in either of Maryland’s past two gubernatorial elections.
In 2014, Hogan and Democratic nominee Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown met in three televised debates. Four years previously, in the last Maryland election with an incumbent running for re-election, Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley and Republican former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. debated twice on television and once on radio.
In July, Hogan’s campaign announced that it had accepted invitations to a debate on Sept. 17 hosted by Maryland Public Television, WBAL-TV, The Baltimore Sun and the University of Baltimore, and another on Sept. 24 hosted by WJLA-TV in Washington and The Washington Post.
But the Jealous camp said it had not agreed to that debate schedule.
Since then, the two sides have been negotiating about debates.
“We proposed five debates in October when voters are really paying attention to the race,” said Steven Hershkowitz, a Jealous campaign spokesman.
“It’s the same number of debates that the Hogan campaign proposed when they were running in 2014.”
Election Day is Nov. 6. Early voting starts Oct. 25.
Hershkowitz said the two campaigns could not reach an agreement on more than one meeting. “We wanted to move forward. It’s been more than a month that we’ve been talking about this,” he said. “We were able to get to an agreement on one debate.”
Hogan campaign officials said they pushed for two debates all along. “The governor very publicly accepted two debate invitations,” said Jim Barnett, campaign manager for Hogan.
“If the Jealous campaign wanted more than one debate, they could have taken yes for an answer. But they self-evidently did not want more than one debate..”