Debates: Why Participate?

When someone says “debate,” I imagine the full stage of podiums for the 2020 Democratic Primary debate and the 2016 Republican Primary debate, the fly during the 2020 Vice Presidential Debate, and a whole lot of candidates interrupting each other. However, my Political Communication class (the one that I’m required to write this blog for) talked about debates this week. We discussed the intricacies, functions, and usefulness of debates. A lot of people will agree with me in thinking of presidential debates when “debate” is mentioned, but debates occur at all levels of government, including Missouri’s Senate race. Today, I’ll be applying what I learned this week to Missouri’s most popular debate, the Missouri Press Association’s forum.

Missouri’s Press Association forum features statewide candidates, and has been hosted since 1988. This year, the debate was on September 16th, and featured Democrat, Libertarian, and Constitution party candidates for Senate. Yep, you read that right – the Republican candidate (Eric Schmitt) was not in attendance. To find out why, we can look into my coursework from this week.

Candidates aren’t required to debate – the Constitution protects freedom of speech, which includes the freedom not to speak. Therefore, candidates must decide whether it is worth their time and effort to participate in debates. There are multiple questions that candidates and their team must ask to make this decision:

1. Is this going to be a close election?

2. Are advantages going to accrue to me if I debate? Will I suffer for not debating?

3. Am I a good debater?

4. Are there only two major candidates running for office?

5. Do I control all of the important variables in the debate situation?

6. Is the field clear of incumbents?

I won’t go into detail on all of these questions, but I will cover a couple:

1. The most recent polls (from mid- to late-September) place Schmitt 11 points ahead of Valentine, and a poll from late-August (that Schmitt’s team probably would have considered) shows the same margin. Therefore, it’s likely that Schmitt’s team believed that this would not be a close election, and his time could be better spent elsewhere.

2. Valentine and her team recognized the advantage of free media attention, which may have been an important factor in their decision to go to the forum. She may have wanted to build name and policy recognition by using this platform. Additionally, Schmitt may have realized that as Attorney General, he already has quite a bit of name and policy recognition. Therefore, he would not suffer as much as Valentine if he decided to skip the debate. However, Valentine, recognizing the opportunity that she had when Schmitt didn’t show up, ended up using his absence as a chance to slam him for allowing China to buy Missouri farmland without giving him a chance for an in person rebuttal.

Although one of the major party candidates for office did not show up to the forum, that does not change the fact that debates are important. A large majority of voters watch debates with their minds made up on who they will be voting for, and only a small percentage of these voters may end up switching their candidate choice. However, that doesn’t take into consideration that many people have not decided who they will be supporting before they watch the debate. While these are smaller percentages of the total number of voters, the most recent polls show only an 11 point difference between Valentine and Schmitt. The same poll shows that 10 percent of voters are still undecided, meaning that the race may be much closer than we have been lead to believe. Will Schmitt end up regretting his decision to skip the Missouri Press Association forum? We’ll have to wait for election day to find out.

If you need to request an absentee ballot, you can do it here, but this form must be received by the election office by 5 pm Wednesday (10/26) in order for you to receive a ballot. If you aren’t requesting an absentee ballot, be sure to make plans to vote in person on November 8th. Additionally, if you’d like to watch the Missouri Press Association’s recording of the forum, you can find it here.