TAMPA, Fla. — Almost every midterm election year, the question of whether Florida’s gubernatorial candidates debate each other on stage is, well, up for debate.

So far, 2026 is no different. With no televised debates scheduled and 46 days before Election Day, many are wondering if this is the year that Republican and Democratic nominees for Florida governor skip the debates entirely.

At least for now, such talk is premature. In Florida, debates come late. Of the eight debates in the state’s gubernatorial races since 2010, the last seven came after Oct. 15. The earliest was held Oct. 8.

Still, Friday’s back-and-forth between the campaigns of Republican U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly was hardly encouraging.

The Donalds’ campaign announced in a news release that it had accepted three offers to debate: Spectrum News and Florida A&M University in Tallahassee on Sept. 29; News4Jax in North Florida on Oct. 13; and Telemundo and NBC 6 in South Florida on Oct. 22.

The Donalds campaign agreed with each outlet that the debates would feature two podiums and no audience to encourage substantive policy exchanges, the campaign announced.

But Jolly’s campaign said it wasn’t contacted before the Donalds’ campaign announcement.

“We found about this from a press release,” said Mark Riddle, Jolly’s senior campaign adviser. “The terms of when and where we debate won’t be dictated to us by Byron Donalds.”

Donalds announcement also implied Jolly had been ducking debates. It referred to a July 20 post on X from Donalds that challenged Jolly to three debates.

“Byron Donalds challenged David Jolly to three debates months ago,” Ryan Smith, Donalds’ chief strategist, said in a statement. “Since we never heard back from him, we accepted three proposals sent to us by Florida media. Floridians deserve to see these two candidates side by side and hear exactly what they would do as governor.”

That July 20 challenge from Donalds came a month before the Republican primary, when he was getting flak from his GOP opponents for not debating them.

“It was clearly a distraction from his primary problems that linger today,” Riddle said. “It’s obvious he’s playing games.”

Riddle said the Jolly campaign had already accepted two debate proposals, at the Tampa Tiger Bay Club and with Jim Defede of CBS in Miami, and was waiting to hear back if Donalds’ campaign had accepted those venues. It had not.

At least so far, the Donalds and Jolly campaigns aren’t talking to each other to coordinate what works for both.

But there’s still time.

Riddle did say the Jolly campaign isn’t ruling anything out yet. He said they’ll review the debates Donalds proposed Friday.

“We’re discussing what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense from a scheduling standpoint,” Riddle said.

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