ST PAUL, Minn. — If it feels like there haven't been as many political debates during this election season, you're right.
Several races in Minnesota, and beyond, have staged fewer debates than in years past.
The race for Minnesota governor has only featured one debate so far, which was back in August. While two more are on the schedule, you'll need to go back to the election of Jesse Ventura in 1998 to find a year with so few debates.
"When I was communications director for Governor Pawlenty's re-election campaign in 2006, we did seven debates."
Political analyst Brian McClung, who is now CEO of Park Street Public government and public relations, says the three gubernatorial debates this year, none of which are likely to be televised statewide, amount to a missed opportunity for voters.
McClung: "Debates are really the only chance voters have to see candidates in an unscripted way, and I think that's a really important part of an election"
Erdahl: "That's something that certainly makes sense, so why aren't they happening as often?"
McClung: "You're seeing incumbent candidates, who have big fundraising advantages, decide that the debates have more risk than reward, and so they are opting to avoid debates because they don't want to have a viral moment that hurts their campaign."
Before Governor Walz was elected in 2018, he debated his republican challenger, Jeff Johnson, six times. Though voters may be frustrated that Walz cut the number in half during this election, McClung says it's worth noting that it's a tactic being used in all kinds of races, by all parties.
"It's not really a partisan issue," he said. "You're seeing democrats and republicans, largely who are incumbents, try to avoid debating. In places like Iowa and Ohio, there's only one gubernatorial debate. In some states, there are zero, and so that's really unfortunate."
Speaking of unfortunate, the last round of presidential debates in 2020, didn't exactly help the trend.
"The first Presidential debate of 2020 especially, I think it did sour people on debates to a certain extent," McClung said. "I mean, they were talking over each other the whole time, you basically couldn't understand anything that Donald Trump or Joe Biden said in that debate. The candidates are looking at it and saying, if it could be something like that, it's fundamentally not helpful and I'm not sure I want to be a part of that."
But he doesn't believe that we've lost the ability, or the will, to pull off civil debates in Minnesota.
"With good moderators, with good rules that are agreed to by both campaigns, you can still have real conversations that are helpful in the context of the election," McClung said. "I don't think debates are dead. Just the fact we're having this conversation shows you that lots of Minnesotans care about political debates and want to hear their candidates debate.
If we continue to keep the pressure on candidates and let them know that this is important, it's an important part of the decision-making process, then we can bring it back around."
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