Herschel Walker said he would only take part in an entirely separate debate after Sen. Raphael Warnock announced three debates he would participate in.
Jay LaPrete/AP Photo

In interviews, campaign officials involved with negotiations in both states conceded that they are effectively at an impasse, and said there’s no guarantee that any debate will occur.

A text message thread reviewed by POLITICO between campaign officials for Vance and Ryan shows the two advisers clashing over whether the other campaign is operating “in good faith” with debate negotiations.

In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock announced three debates he would participate in, followed by Republican Herschel Walker saying he would only take part in an entirely separate debate. There was a new development in the apparent stalemate Wednesday when Warnock said he would attend Walker’s chosen debate if, among other conditions, Walker agreed to participate in one of the debates Warnock had accepted.

Walker on Wednesday declined to answer questions about whether he would consider accepting one of the other debates, instead repeating that he was committed to the debate he had previously accepted.

And in Missouri, Eric Schmitt, the state’s attorney general and Republican nominee for Senate, this week repeatedly criticized his Democratic opponent, Trudy Busch Valentine, for not yet committing to a televised debate, as he has.

The reason Senate candidates are reluctant to commit to debates is that there’s usually more risk than potential benefit, strategists say.

“What are the Senate debates of recent memory?” said Martha McKenna, a Democratic strategist and admaker. “It’s ones like Kelly Ayotte completely stumbling over would she support Trump … Certainly Richard Mourdock, who said pregnancy from rape is what God intended.”

Mourdock, an Indiana Republican who defeated the state’s incumbent senator in a 2012 primary, cost his party a Senate seat that year after a late-October debate where he said abortion should remain illegal in cases of rape, citing God’s will for the woman to become pregnant. Ayotte, an incumbent GOP senator in New Hampshire, lost reelection in 2016 by one-tenth of a percentage point. She eventually walked back comments she made at an October debate saying Trump was “absolutely” a suitable role model for children — but not before Democrats put out ads bashing her for her support of the polarizing Republican presidential candidate.

“There are moments from these debates where someone said something that did, in fact, turn into a television ad,” McKenna said.

Primary debates in Ohio’s Republican Senate race had the effect of boosting Vance’s standing with voters while his GOP opponents Josh Mandel and Mike Gibbons experienced the opposite effect — and got days of news coverage featuring footage of the two men nearly coming to a brawl onstage. In addition to controversial comments Gibbons made about women during the debates, he and Mandel drew national headlines after a debate moderator had to separate the two candidates as they stood chest to chest exchanging insults.

Irene Lin, a Democratic strategist, said it’s often difficult to dazzle an audience in a debate, but can be easy to screw up. Lin most recently worked on Tom Nelson’s unsuccessful Senate primary campaign in Wisconsin, where they were hoping to have a “breakout moment and change the narrative a bit. But it’s hard to do in a debate.”

And it’s “a pain” for staff to prepare for those debates, Lin said, a sentiment echoed by Shumaker, the Republican strategist, who estimated a single hour-long debate requires 60 hours of the candidate’s time for preparation — and “500 to 1,000” hours of staff time.

While Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet has agreed to several candidate forums and a traditional televised debate in October, Bennet’s campaign confirmed he will not be at a separate debate this weekend that his Republican challenger Joe O’Dea is attending — though Bennet previously took part in the event when he was seeking reelection. And despite Arizona Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters agreeing to a proposed CNN-sponsored debate, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly’s campaign said he would not participate in it — only in the local debate he and Masters are both confirmed to attend.

“A lot of times in debates, you’re trying to be as boring as possible,” Lin said. “And not make too much news.”