Beto O’Rourke blames Gov. Greg Abbott for nixing live audience in tonight’s debate
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Tonight’s debate between Gov. Greg Abbott and Democrat Beto O’Rourke won’t feature a live studio audience — and O’Rourke is blaming the governor for that arrangement.
“Greg Abbott let more people into the room to watch him ban abortion in cases of rape and incest than he’s letting into the room to watch tonight’s debate,” O’Rourke tweeted Friday morning.
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He was referencing Abbott’s signing ceremony last year for Senate Bill 8 — the so-called “Heartbeat Bill” — that banned nearly all abortions in Texas months before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. He was surrounded by dozens of Texas lawmakers who had championed the legislation.
Abbott’s campaign said O’Rourke’s tweet was inaccurate, and both candidates had agreed to rules put out by Nexstar Media Group, the television station hosting the 7 p.m. debate at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg.
“The terms of debate were agreed to by both campaigns months ago, and now, at the last minute, Beto doesn’t like them,” said Mark Miner, the communications director for the Abbott campaign. “He’s a fraud surrounded by incompetence. Tonight Beto will have to explain his support for defunding the police, open borders and extreme environmental energy policies that will kill hundreds of thousands of energy jobs in Texas.”
But O’Rourke’s team said Nexstar did not make the decision. Chris Evans, the communications director for the O’Rourke campaign, said the Democrat had repeatedly proposed hosting the debate with an audience of invited guests, students and members of the public — but the Abbott campaign rejected those ideas each time.
O’Rourke also suggested hosting the event on a different weeknight, since Friday nights in Texas are usually dominated by high school football games, but Abbott declined that proposal, Evans said.
Nexstar would have allowed a live studio audience if both campaigns agreed, Evans said. He provided a copy of an August 9 email in which a Nexstar representative told the O’Rourke campaign: “This morning, I received feedback from the Abbott campaign on the requested changes we discussed yesterday in reference to adding an audience, town hall-style format, standing for Beto and date change. They declined any changes in the format proposal to the above-mentioned items.”
“There are 1,000 seats in that theater, and none of them will be filled tonight because the Abbott campaign declined to have an audience,” Evans said.
Gary Weitman, a spokesman for Nexstar Media Group, said all debate formats are a “negotiation between both campaigns, and any specific provision must be agreed to by both sides. Both sides agreed to the format for tonight’s debate.”
Tonight’s face-off will be the only time Abbott and O’Rourke debate before the election.
O’Rourke’s campaign has agreed to four additional town hall-style debates before voting begins, and has invited Abbott to do the same, but the governor’s team has characterized tonight’s event as “the one and only gubernatorial debate.”
The Abbott campaign announced Friday that it is posting billboards around the debate site and throughout the Rio Grande Valley criticizing O’Rourke’s policies.
“As Beto O’Rourke faces off against Governor Greg Abbott on stage at the debate, he won’t be able to run from his extreme liberal policies that are wrong for Texas,” Miner said in a release.
cayla.harris@express-news.net