BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The two major candidates vying against each other in the U.S. Senate race confirmed Tuesday they will hold a fourth debate before the November election.
Campaigns for Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu and Republican state Treasurer John Kennedy said that a second debate in New Orleans — to be televised by WWL-TV and carried live on stations around Louisiana — will be added to the list of October debates announced last week.
Three of the four debates will be televised. The first debate is set for Oct. 6 in Baton Rouge, followed by Oct. 12 in Baton Rouge, Oct. 15 in New Orleans and Oct. 22 in New Orleans.
The election is November 4. Landrieu is seeking re-election to a third term.
Landrieu’s campaign called the latest debate added to the list the final one before the election, though a Kennedy spokesman said his campaign was continuing to discuss debates with other TV stations around the state.
Lenny Alcivar, Kennedy’s campaign spokesman, accused Landrieu of attempting to avoid a fourth debate and said the Kennedy campaign forced the Democratic senator to attend.
Landrieu’s campaign spokesman, Scott Schneider, called the claim “patently false.” Schneider said the campaign gave WWL-TV and the Kennedy campaign a series of dates from which to choose and it took weeks before there was an agreement on the Oct. 22 date.