After skipping out on a televised debate earlier this month, Republican Burgess Owens agreed to debate Democrat Darlene McDonald on Friday, Oct. 28, at 5 p.m., in their first and only faceoff during Utah’s 4th Congressional District race.
McDonald’s campaign confirmed the debate was scheduled for Oct. 28 and Owen’s campaign appeared to send a text message to voters on Friday announcing the debate. Both parties said details on how the event will be streamed were forthcoming.
Owens pulled out of the nonpartisan Utah Debate Commission’s Oct. 12 debate with McDonald and United Utah candidate January Walker just hours before the event, citing objections to The Tribune executive editor Lauren Gustus as moderator and his frustrations with an editorial cartoon published by the paper last year. At the time, Owens invited McDonald to join him for a debate at town hall meetings on Oct. 22 and 29.
After more than a week of negotiations, the two campaigns settled on just one debate moderated by University of Utah political science professor James Curry, according to McDonald’s campaign. They added that the event will be live-streamed without an audience, that no third-party candidates would participate and the debate will follow the format used by the Utah Debate Commission.
After Burgess Owens refused to participate in the official debate, he WILL be sharing a stage with @VoteDarlene to debate the issues most important to the 4th District.
— Utah Democratic Party (@UtahDemocrats) October 21, 2022
Mark your calendars: Friday, 10/28 at 5:00 pm. Streaming details to come. #utpol pic.twitter.com/sEEEzW0BR0
Until now, Owens has refused to participate in any debates during the 2022 election cycle. He skipped debates sponsored by the Utah Debate Commission and Utah Republican Party before the June primary election. The last time Owens shared a debate stage with a political rival was a single debate with Democrat Ben McAdams just over two years ago.
The rescheduled debate comes just 11 days before Election Day and nearly two weeks after mail-in ballots began arriving in voters’ mailboxes.
This story is breaking and will be updated with new information throughout the day.
Clarification • This story has been updated to make clear that McDonald’s campaign outlined the parameters of the future debate.
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/cKTW2kL
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