Soon after Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy publicly accepted two debate invitations and called on his Democratic opponent Amy Acton to do the same, she did not oblige. Instead, her campaign released a “Statement on Debates” which declared, “Dr. Acton’s focus is on talking with Ohioans, not platforming a scam artist…” It’s a hair short of a flat declaration that Acton will never debate Ramaswamy, but only that.
Cue the predictable reactions. The Ohio Republican Party posted on X, “Why is she afraid? What does she have to hide?” On the Today in Ohio podcast, Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial board member Leila Atassi chided, “I think she really risks making a strategic mistake here because she’s handing Ramaswamy something he has not earned, which is the mantle of the candidate demanding openness and scrutiny.”
We saw a similar debate over debates play out four years ago, when Arizona Democrat Katie Hobbs refused to share a stage with Republican Kari Lake. Typically, the only candidates who refuse to debate are those coasting to victory and with no incentive to give their opponents free media exposure. But Hobbs was slightly behind Lake in mid-October polling when she made her refusal known, and many pundits thought ducking debates would seal her fate. Hobbs ended up defying the polls and winning by less than a percentage point. This year, Hobbs is sticking with what worked and isn’t debating her Republican challenger, Representative Andy Biggs—except this time Hobbs is leading every poll sampled in the last month by an average of seven points.
But why did it work? As I explained in the aftermath of Hobbs’ upset, the romanticized nostalgia of debates as a rigorous, substantive journalistic test that voters expect politicians to pass is woefully outdated: “[M]odern debates are a far cry from Lincoln-Douglas. They are reality TV shows marked with soporific talking points and cheap insults. It’s not just that voters don’t care about debates. Voters have good reason not to care about debates. They are not especially useful at helping voters decide who is best suited to govern.”
Even if they’re not especially useful, why not just do one and get it over with, to avoid being accused of cowardice? Because they chew up a candidate’s most precious resource: time. A debate is not just an hour or so out of a candidate’s day, but also the days of debate prep required to avoid a devastating gaffe.
In Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign memoir 107 Days, she chronicles her first debate prep session held on July 29, eight days after Joe Biden withdrew from the race (following his own disastrous debate performance), as well as the five days she took off the campaign trail for the final prep—accounting for nearly 5 percent of her entire campaign schedule—immediately before the September 10 debate with Donald Trump.
The prep worked, in the short run. She eviscerated Trump on stage. What happened next? Trump refused to debate again, arguably his smartest strategic decision. By Election Day, Harris’s debate performance was a distant memory, and he won.
Debates do not always favor the better prepared, as these are not high school affairs scored on points. They are media spectacles that favor the candidates with superior media skills. That often isn’t the person who knows the most policy or even has the best arguments for their policies. More often it’s the fastest and brashest candidate, who can so speedily flip a tough question into a crowd-pleasing zinger that the audience forgets what the question was.
Katie Hobbs was decidedly not that candidate. She could be a halting speaker while Lake had been a television news anchor for over 20 years. Moreover, Lake had a tenuous relationship with the truth. As Hobbs’ spokesperson argued at the time, “you can’t debate a conspiracy theorist.” Hobbs clinically made the wise assessment that a debate stage played to her opponent’s strengths, which would only give more oxygen to misinformation, and that wouldn’t be a good use of precious time.
Acton is in a similar position to Hobbs four years ago, two points behind in the Fox News poll, the lone August poll from a “Select Pollster” (as determined by The New York Times). Fox News had her up one in a late May poll, but since she has been subject to an onslaught of scurrilous attack ads from Ramaswamy and an allied Super PAC, Victors not Victims. She has been depicted as an alcoholic (wildly exaggerating elements from a 2019 police report about a non-violent domestic disturbance) and as an incompetent state health director for Ohio during the COVID-19 pandemic (blaming Acton’s stay-at-home orders for the death of a woman in a different state). Acton so happens to have served under the incumbent Republican Governor Mike DeWine, and he defended her tenure last December, insisting “no one should blame someone else” for his pandemic policies.
Acton is also a cogent but dry speaker, while Ramaswamy made his mark as a combative debater in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries.
Atassi, on the Today in Ohio podcast, urged Action to debate to knock down the smears because “a debate is actually the place where she can confront those attacks directly. And there are moderators there to press both candidates.” But time and time again we have seen moderators either shirk from correcting candidates for factual errors or, when they try to fact-check, get pummeled by offending candidates for bias, leaving voters unsure who is telling the truth. That’s why the Acton campaign is making a reasoned decision when it says she’s not interested in sharing a stage with someone who “spreads baseless lies about her and her family.”
Besides, Acton has other means to prove her ability to answer tough questions and debunk misinformation, namely, interviews with neutral journalists and town halls with undecided constituents. A debate isn’t the only way to press a candidate, and it isn’t necessarily the best way. Even setting aside the problems associated with debating a bad-faith candidate, the inherent time constraints allow candidates to rely largely on scripted talking points and rarely reveal more than what’s on the issues page of a campaign website. If Acton maintains a healthy schedule of public appearances where she handles unscripted questions, attempts to tar her running scared won’t stick.
Ramaswamy, of course, is going to try. He’s already dug up comments from Acton’s running mate, David Pepper, from 2014, when Pepper ran for state Attorney General against the incumbent at the time (now Governor) Mike DeWine. Pepper accused DeWine of showing “contempt for voters” by refusing to debate. And then DeWine beat Pepper by 23 points. Consider the possibility that voters haven’t cared about debates for a long time, and politicians are starting to catch on.
Four years ago, I wrote, “If a campaign can reasonably conclude the debate can be avoided without voters caring, then that’s time reclaimed to be used on the candidate’s terms. In other words, if Hobbs wins, expect fewer debates.” While debates have not completely gone the way of cursive yet, a debate-free Acton victory will be another step in that direction.
