Maryland’s Senate candidates are deadlocked over when and where to debate this fall, raising questions about whether former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks will ever spar one on one.
Both candidates have accepted invitations — just not to the same debates. The campaigns are accusing one another of dodging a televised stage and not negotiating in good faith to strike a mutual date, time, and format.
“We’re anxious to do it,” Hogan told the Washington Examiner on Thursday. “We’re glad that she says she will, but they’ve been ducking it for several months now.”
The Alsobrooks campaign told the Washington Examiner they’re the only ones to express interest in dialogue and to accept a “traditional hallmark statewide debate.”
The editorial board of the Baltimore Sun, a co-host of one of the proposed debates, is advocating the two to figure it out for the sake of voters in the Old Line State.
“Is it really too much to expect these candidates — both experienced public speakers and campaign veterans — to square off in multiple debates?” the board wrote. “Don’t Maryland voters deserve the opportunity to compare and contrast the candidates’ political positions, demeanors and thought processes?”
Hogan was first to commit in May to two televised debates: one on Oct. 10 hosted by FOX45, WJLA-TV, the Baltimore Sun, and the University of Baltimore and the second on a to-be-determined date hosted by WUSA9, Maryland Public Television, WJZ-TV, and WBOC-TV.
Alsobrooks did not commit to either. Campaign spokesman Connor Lounsbury said Alsobrooks has a conflict on the evening of Oct. 10 with an event for the National Council of Negro Women.
Both candidates were invited in June to a third debate to be hosted Oct. 23 by Maryland Public Television, WBAL-TV, and WRC-TV/WZDC-TV that would be moderated by NBC News’s Chuck Todd, according to an email chain viewed by the Washington Examiner that included the media outlets and both campaigns.
For scheduling reasons, the Alsobrooks campaign counter-proposed late last month that it be held Oct. 10 but taped during the day to not conflict with the National Council of Negro Women. Last week, Maryland Public Television agreed, and Alsobrooks accepted the invitation. The Hogan campaign did not respond.
Hogan accused Alsobrooks of “trying to engineer something else” outside of the two debates they were already invited to and said it’d be “insulting” for him to cancel commitments he made months ago.
“It would be insulting … to say, ‘Hey, because my opponent won’t talk to you, we’re going to do a debate at the same time but we’re going to stiff you,’” he said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
The Alsobrooks team said they’re waiting for Hogan’s campaign to engage with them on the email chain for the daytime prerecorded Oct. 10 debate.
“Ultimately, both sides have to come to the table,” Lounsbury said. “We’re the only campaign in this race that has engaged in that process.”
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The Baltimore Sun, meanwhile, is evidently having none of it. In their op-ed that was critical of both candidates, the editorial board sought to cut through the finger-pointing.
“How much is politics and how much is possible scheduling conflicts?” they wrote. “We’re going to guess it’s a whole lot more of the former.”
