Wichita mayoral candidates will debate today. Here’s how to watch the livestream.
A mayoral debate will be held Thursday, July 20, featuring candidates for Wichita mayor heading into the August primary election. The debate will last for 90 minutes, starting at 7 and concluding at 8:30 p.m.
The event will be hosted by KPTS in association with the Wichita Eagle, KAKE News and KSN News.
The Eagle will be livestreaming the debate on our Facebook page. PBS Kansas will broadcast the event on channel 8.1 and livestream it to their own KPTS.org. KAKE and KSN will have livestreams as well.
So far, eight of the nine candidates have accepted the invitation to participate in the event: Jared Cerullo, Shelia Davis, Bryan Frye, Anthony Gallardo, Celeste Racette, Julie Rose Stroud, incumbent mayor Brandon Whipple and Lily Wu.
According to Jim Grawe, executive producer for KPTS, mayoral candidate Tom Kane was reached out to several times to participate in the debate but did not follow up.
“Everybody else was eager and enthusiastic to participate,” Grawe said.
Former Wichita news anchor Susan Peters will moderate the debate. One journalist from each of the three news organizations working with KPTS will ask the candidates questions: Dion Lefler of The Eagle, Pilar Pedraza of KAKE and Craig Andres of KSN.
“The questions will be determined by those three journalists. They’re working together on those,” Grawe said.
The Eagle will also be monitoring our Facebook to select viewer questions for the candidates.
Each candidate will have 30 seconds to introduce themselves at the start of the debate. When answering questions, candidates will be given one minute to answer. If a candidate’s name comes up in someone else’s answer, they will be granted a 30-second rebuttal.
“That’s pretty tight, but we have so many candidates, we can’t have long answers,” Grawe said. “That’s the challenge.”
PBS Kansas will rebroadcast the mayoral debate the following weekend.
2023 Wichita voter guide: Read about candidates and their views, where and how to vote
2023 Wichita voter guide: Candidates in primary for mayor respond to questions
