Harriet Hageman Town Halls Wyoming

Harriet Hageman Didn't Answer Wyoming PBS's Debate Invitation. Now Wyoming PBS Has Canceled Its U.S. Senate Debate.

Rep. Harriet Hageman, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, let Wyoming PBS's debate deadline pass without responding. The station doesn't hold one-candidate debates, so it canceled the Senate debate. She skipped the 2022 general-election debate and both PBS debates in 2024 too.

MAGA Report Cards · Sep 13, 2026

Harriet Hageman Didn't Answer Wyoming PBS's Debate Invitation. Now Wyoming PBS Has Canceled Its U.S. Senate Debate.

Harriet Hageman wants to be Wyoming's next U.S. senator. Wyoming PBS invited her to debate her opponent on statewide television next month. She didn't answer.

Because of that, Wyoming PBS won't hold a Senate debate at all.

What happened

Wyoming PBS invited both U.S. Senate candidates, Hageman and Democratic nominee James Byrd, to a televised debate in October. Byrd said yes. Hageman did not respond by the Tuesday deadline, Wyoming PBS CEO Joanna Kail confirmed to Cowboy State Daily.

Wyoming PBS doesn't host a debate with only one candidate on stage. So it canceled the Senate debate.

Byrd's campaign asked the station to give him a town hall or a long interview instead. PBS said no. In an email to Byrd's team, Kail wrote: "Unfortunately, since Mr. Byrd is the only U.S. Senate candidate who accepted our debate invitation, we are unable to host a debate among U.S. Senate candidates this year."

So one campaign's silence decided what every Wyoming voter gets to see.

"Harriet Hageman won't stand on a stage. She won't return calls. She won't even respond," Byrd said. "You don't get to represent this state if you won't show up and defend what you believe in front of it."

She debated when it helped her

This is not a candidate who can't handle a debate stage. Hageman showed up for Wyoming PBS's Republican primary debate on August 13. Five days later, she won the nomination with 64.7% of the vote.

Once the nomination was hers, she didn't answer the next invitation.

That's her pattern. After beating Liz Cheney in the 2022 primary, Hageman didn't attend the general election debate that fall. In 2024, she skipped both Wyoming PBS debates. That year her campaign declined the invitation and said she believed "directly interacting with voters is the best way for candidates to engage."

The same excuse, two years later

Here's what her campaign advisor, Tim Murtaugh, said this time:

"Representative Hageman will spend her time talking directly to voters as she has for the past five years."

He said she will "once again complete town halls for every county," and that she "proudly reports her voting record and recaps of her activity in her weekly newsletter."

Town halls matter, and Hageman does hold them. But a town hall is her event, on her terms. A newsletter is her own writing about herself. A debate is the one place where a voter can watch both candidates answer the same questions, from a neutral moderator, and push back on each other in real time. That is exactly the thing she keeps skipping.

This is a Senate seat. The winner will serve a six-year term. Wyoming PBS's debate would have let voters who can't make it to a town hall see the two candidates side by side on public television. Now they won't get it.

She isn't the only Republican doing this. In Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany turned down the broadcasters' debate that Wisconsin broadcasters had held since 1990, and it was canceled too.

The bottom line

Harriet Hageman, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Wyoming, didn't respond to Wyoming PBS's debate invitation by its deadline. Because the station won't hold a one-candidate debate, Wyoming PBS has canceled its U.S. Senate debate. She debated in this year's primary, but skipped the 2022 general-election debate and both PBS debates in 2024.