Sen. Cory Gardner and former Gov. John Hickenlooper are set to debate at 7 p.m. today in the first debate of Colorado’s U.S. Senate race.
The debate, hosted by The Pueblo Chieftain, will be held at Pueblo Community College’s Center for New Media. Moderating the debate will be the Chieftain’s editor, Steve Henson. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be no live audience but the debate will be broadcast on public access channels and via livestream.
Gardner and Hickenlooper are debating just days after a presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden descended into chaos. The two presidential candidates spent 1½ hours Tuesday talking over one another and slinging attacks back and forth.
Days after that, Trump announced early Friday he and his wife, Melania, had tested positive for COVID-19. Although Biden announced he had tested negative, it has raised concerns among people across the country about the best ways to conduct debates safely.
The Chieftain has not published a list of debate topics. It wrote that Hickenlooper and Gardner would respond to questions about “crucial topics impacting both the state and nation.”
Gardner is seeking re-election after he unseated former Sen. Mark Udall in 2014. He served in Colorado’s House of Representatives before being elected to represent the state’s 4th Congressional District in Washington before his election to the Senate.
Hickenlooper won the Democratic nomination this summer. He served as mayor of Denver from 2003 to 2011 and governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019. After his tenure as governor ended, he ran briefly for president before suspending that campaign and announcing his run for Senate.
The race is being watched across the country as Democrats hope to flip the Senate and Republicans seek to hold on to their majority. The pandemic forced many campaign events online and outright canceled others, but in the last month before the election, it appears candidates will be busy.
Gardner and Hickenlooper will debate a total of three times in the next two weeks: in Pueblo tonight, in Denver on Oct. 9 and in Fort Collins on Oct. 12.
John Purcell is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C.
