EDINBURG — Gov. Greg Abbott accepted an invitation on Tuesday to debate his Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in September.
The Nexstar Media debate will be “the one and only debate of the 2022 election,” Abbott’s campaign staff said in an email.
“Governor Abbott is looking forward to debating Beto O’Rourke and explaining to all Texans about the Governor’s efforts to secure the future of Texas by securing the border, defunding cities that defund the police, lowering property taxes, and protecting our oil & gas industry,” Abbott’s campaign chairman Gardner Pate said in the email.
O’Rourke’s campaign also sent an email shortly after, saying he looked forward to attending a forum “at a mutually agreed upon date and time,” but added that “one debate in one community for the entire state of Texas is not nearly enough.”
“The people of Texas deserve better,” O’Rourke’s team said.
Instead, the challenger proposed “three town hall-style debates in every region of the state during weeknights this fall where they can take questions directly from their fellow Texans.”
“While Beto has held 80 town hall meetings where he has answered over 500 questions from Texans from any political party in every part of the state, Abbott has not held public town halls where he takes questions in person from those he is supposed to serve,” O’Rourke’s email said. “That helps to explain why his extreme policies are so out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Texans.”
The candidates will meet for an hour-long debate at the university on Sept. 30, according to Abbott’s email. The broadcast will be available in every media market, and on Spanish language stations throughout Texas.
The discussion in Edinburg will be moderated by Britt Moreno of KXAN Austin, and will feature a panel of journalists including Sally Hernandez of KXAN Austin, Gromer Jeffers of the Dallas Morning News, and Steve Spriester of KSAT San Antonio.
Both candidates had a very public run-in in late May, when O’Rourke interrupted a news conference and confronted Abbott about his stance on gun laws following the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde.
