MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota’s candidates for governor and U.S. Senate haven’t shared a debate stage in nearly two months, and with six weeks until the general election, it’s unclear how many more times they will face off.

The lack of a settled debate schedule is raising questions about whether voters will get to see many more showdowns between the candidates. Since the primary election in August, the candidates have largely communicated through campaign events, interviews, advertising and social media rather than head-to-head exchanges.

All four candidates say they want to debate, but they haven’t found much common ground in terms of dates and venues.

In the governor’s race, GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth announced Monday she had accepted five invitations to debate U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Klobuchar said she has agreed to two debates, only one of which overlapped with Demuth’s list.

Demuth’s campaign said it had agreed to participate in debates hosted by Fox 9, KSTP-TV, Minnesota PBS, the Duluth News Tribune/Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.

“Minnesotans deserve a robust series of debates that will attract the largest possible audiences,” said Kevin Poindexter, Demuth’s campaign manager.

Klobuchar said she agreed to participate in debates hosted by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and Minnesota Public Radio. That means the only debate that both candidates have agreed to is the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce event in Brainerd on Oct. 19.

Klobuchar said she hoped the Chamber debate would be televised.

“We are continuing to work on this, so we make sure that we clearly have debates,” she said.

Klobuchar said she already debated Demuth at Farmfest in early August. That forum, which was held before the primary election, also featured two other Republican candidates for governor, Kendall Qualls and Mike Lindell. Klobuchar and Demuth have yet to have a one-on-one debate.

“I think I’m the only one, you’d have to look through history, that debated not just my eventual opponent but my three opponents in the Republican Party at the same time,” Klobuchar said.

In the 2022 election, DFL Gov. Tim Walz and Republican nominee Scott Jensen debated three times, once at Farmfest and later on television and MPR that October.

A similar dynamic is unfolding in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race. Both candidates say they have agreed to debates — but not the same ones.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the DFL nominee, said earlier this month that she had agreed to participate in two October debates, one hosted by MPR and the other by KBJR in Duluth in partnership with FOX 9.

“Flanagan looks forward to making the contrast in this race crystal clear: She is running a grassroots campaign to make life more affordable and take on powerful interests,” her campaign wrote.

Meanwhile, Republican Senate nominee and former NFL sideline broadcaster Michele Tafoya has agreed to participate in a debate on KSTP, her spokeswoman Christine Snell said.

“Tafoya has agreed to the KSTP debate, and they’re working out details for subsequent debates,” Snell said Monday.

Flanagan and Tafoya have also yet to debate with each other directly. The forum they participated in at Farmfest included their respective primary opponents, Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and Republican Royce White.

Steven Schier, a political scientist and Carleton College professor emeritus, said candidates are increasingly “shopping” for venues they believe will favor their campaigns instead of accepting a traditional slate of debates.

“In the past, it’s been easy to line up debates for the whole ticket, and this year it’s been like pulling teeth to get anything arranged,” Schier said. “I think it’s because candidates perceive the media environment as changing, as fragmenting, and giving them opportunities for message control that in prior cycles they didn’t have.”

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