The League of Women Voters, a century-old nonpartisan voting-rights organization, has long hosted public debates around the country as a way for citizens to engage with the political candidates running to represent them.

But in recent years, the number of candidates on both sides of the aisle who duck their debates has climbed, with GOP officials in Cape May County urging Republicans up and down the ballot this year to avoid league events altogether.

To Jesse Burns, who heads the league in New Jersey, the trend is equal parts troubling and baffling, especially as participation in voter guides produced by the group wanes too.

“We have refusals across the state right now,” Burns said. “We’re just looking to provide information to voters so that we can increase voter turnout and have voters feel confident that they have the information they need to cast a ballot and actually understand what candidates’ policies are and not just the party that follows their name.”

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Election observers say debate-dodging is a longtime campaign strategy that has become more common in the social-media era as candidates — especially incumbents and front-runners — try to avoid gaffes that could go viral and cost them votes.

That happened earlier this month, when Republican Sen. Darline Graham — facing a runoff election to retain her late brother Lindsey Graham’s U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina — flubbed a question about national security in Taiwan and the South China Sea.

“National security is not my thing,” she said in a moment that earned her widespread drubbing on social media. “I’m not that informed on national security.”

Graham prevailed despite the debate stumble.

A gotcha moment during a New Jersey gubernatorial debate last fall echoed long after Democrat Mikie Sherrill, who went on to win, and Republican Jack Ciattarelli left the stage. Sherrill accused Ciattarelli, a former medical publisher, of killing “thousands” of people by printing propaganda for the opioid industry.

“A lot of people thought that moment was over the top, and there were questions about whether it was a fair charge or whether it was a distorted charge,” said Micah Rasmussen heads the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “But it put him on the defensive for the rest of that debate, and really after the debate. He had to answer those questions at a time when he needed to be on the offense.”

Those debate moments show why some candidates prefer to play it safe, steer clear of the debate stage, and carefully control their messaging, Rasmussen said.

“Most of the time, modern campaigns are designed around that scripted moment, and debates are essentially that one time when it’s not scripted, when you could be asked a tough question,” he said. “It’s a high-risk, low-reward situation for a lot of candidates who are ahead, and they would just rather run out the clock.”

But skipping debates can backfire because it gives a candidate’s campaign rivals ammunition to attack, as Republican Michael McGuire did last week in his bid to unseat Rep. Herb Conaway, the Democrat incumbent in Burlington County’s 3rd Congressional District. McGuire blasted Conaway for skipping a League of Women Voters debate.

“For more information — or if you’re Congressman Conaway changing your mind about debating — please contact the campaign,” McGuire’s team cheekily wrote in a news release.

Conaway didn’t respond to the New Jersey Monitor’s request for comment. He told the league’s Monmouth County chapter he had a scheduling conflict, said chapter spokeswoman Mary Donnelly. McGuire also did not confirm his participation, Donnelly added. McGuire’s team told the New Jersey Monitor he sent the chapter a letter indicating he would participate if the forum is held in person before Sept. 19, when ballots begin going out.

“The most effective attack you can make against an incumbent is that they’re not doing their job, and voters broadly perceive engaging with the public as being part of doing your job,” said Dan Cassino, a political science professor and pollster at Fairleigh Dickinson University. “So if you dodge debates, this opens you up to attacks: ‘Oh, this person’s afraid of us. This person won’t speak to the public. This person won’t reveal their views.’”

In Cape May County, GOP chair Michael Donohue said his guidance to Republican candidates to avoid league events there has more to do with local leadership, which he does not regard as nonpartisan, rather than opposition to the group broadly.

“They are very vocal. And — God bless them — I’m not saying they’re doing anything wrong by being far to the left. That’s their prerogative in a free country. I’m just saying that from the standpoint of a Republican candidate, why would you go to a forum hosted by those folks?” Donohue said.

Burns denied any bias and pointed to debate format as proof why partisan fears are unfounded.

“League debates are pretty standard,” she said. “In general, it is a league moderator asking questions that we get from the audience, which is community members. And these are not gotcha questions. These are usually questions like, ‘What are your policy priorities and why?’ So it’s not like we’re setting candidates up to fail in these debates.”

Bias questions aside, Donohue said he struggles to see the point of debates at a time when journalism is shrinking and people are getting their information from a wider array of sources.

“I don’t hate debates, but there’s an analysis from a campaign political standpoint: What’s the value?” Donohue said.

Donohue has run for state Assembly twice and served as his county’s GOP chair since 2010, except during a four-year stint as a state Superior Court judge. He said candidates used to embrace debates in hopes of landing media coverage that would deliver their message far beyond the voters in the debate audience. But now, many news outlets don’t air or cover debates, and even social media can’t reach all the voters a candidate — especially at the local level — can reach by knocking on doors and other such activities, he said.

“Debates end up being just a discussion to your supporters,” he said. “There’s rarely any serious substance in these things, and even if they ask questions that should get substantive answers, typically the candidates just pivot back to some hot-button issue that they want to push to the base. We’re in this Twitter/X moment, and everybody just wants these little sound bites.”

Cassino also sees broader trends at play.

“Debates really are an invention of the TV era, and so it’s possible that they’re going away as the TV era comes to an end,” he said.

Voters increasingly rely on partisan cues as politics becomes hyper-polarized, rather than investing time in listening to debates or seeking out other unfiltered sources of information about candidates, he added.

“In some sense, voters don’t need as much information because the partisan heuristic is more powerful than it’s been in the past,” Cassino said. “So, if I’m a Democrat: ‘I don’t need to know anything about Democratic candidates. They could be the worst candidate on earth, and I’m going to vote for them anyway.’ Most voters are really just: ‘I’m a Democrat. I’m a Republican. Therefore, I know who to vote for.’”

Independent voters still have to do their homework to learn about candidates, he said.

But, he added, “I’ve been teaching college for 20 years. I can tell you nobody likes doing homework. So those voters, by and large, just don’t turn out to vote at all.”

Voters should pay attention when candidates dodge debates, though, Rasmussen said.

“They should want candidates who are accountable, and this is one more form of accountability,” he said. “It’s one more form of: ‘I’m not afraid to answer questions. I’m not afraid to have you measure me up against my opponent. Ask me anything you want.’ That kind of accountability is what we should all want from our elected officials.”

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