Deluzio, Mercuri trade jabs over debates that haven’t materialized in Congressional race

Just over a month from Election Day, the candidates in the region's most competitive Congressional race do not have plans to meet each other on a debate stage — although both sides say they are still willing to meet for one.

Republican state Rep. Rob Mercuri called out incumbent Democrat Chris Deluzio for the situation on X on Thursday. Deluzio, he charged, “declined and is hiding” from a debate in the 17th Congressional district race on WTAE-TV.

Deluzio responded on X that Mercuri himself declined two debates, one with the NAACP of Coraopolis and one with the League of Women Voters.

Both campaigns deny having turned down an invitation outright. Each acknowledged, however, that they did not respond to at least one debate request that the other camp had accepted.

Deluzio’s campaign said he accepted invitations for the NAACP and League of Women Voters events because they were scheduled to occur before the due date of his wife’s pregnancy.

“The first two debates Congressman Deluzio accepted, and that Rob Mercuri dodged, were before the Congressman's wife’s due date,” the campaign statement reads. “They are excitedly expecting their fourth child.”

Mercuri’s campaign said he originally accepted the NAACP event as well, but the date had to be changed because Deluzio’s campaign expected he would have to be in Washington to vote on a government spending bill.

Carter Spruill, the president of the Coraopolis NAACP, confirmed that Deluzio’s campaign asked to move the original Sept. 28 date to Oct. 5. But then Mercuri’s campaign told the organization that Oct. 5 would not work for them, Spruill said.

Spruill emphasized that the event was never intended to be a debate but a “meet-and-greet candidate forum.” Spruill said Deluzio’s campaign told him they are open to rescheduling. “His wife is pregnant,” he said. “So that's going to be a little touch and go. … But at least they're open. Mercuri's camp, we have not heard anything back from them.”

A Mercuri campaign advisor also said Mercuri never declined the League of Women Voters debate, but that he pursued the WTAE debate instead because the station’s plans seemed further along. For example, the advisor said, WTAE told the campaign what the debate panel would look like.

According to a source familiar with debate planning at WTAE, the debate was not canceled because, while the original invitation proposed a date somewhere between Oct. 14-18, “There was no [specific] date for a debate scheduled.”

Mercuri’s campaign initially said that they believed Deluzio was dodging the debate because of the larger TV audience it would bring. (The League of Women Voters was planning to stream their event but not broadcast it on TV.) After Mercuri’s campaign was informed by WESA about the upcoming due date of Deluzio’s child, an advisor said he thought a date could still be worked out.

“I think we could go back to WTAE and say, ‘Let’s do it on Oct. 10,’” Mercuri’s advisor said, singling out the date originally claimed by the League of Women Voters. “We would love to have a debate.”

Zoe Bluffstone did not respond directly to a question about whether Deluzio would be free for a WTAE debate on the 10th, but noted that Deluzio had already accepted the League’s invitation on that date. “If Rob Mercuri wanted to debate on that day,” she said, he should have accepted that invitation.

“Congressman Deluzio remains willing to debate,” Bluffstone said.