MONTGOMERY — U.S. Senate candidates Katie Britt and Rep. Mo Brooks have agreed to debates ahead of next month’s primary, but say Mike Durant has far refused to meet them on stage.

Both Britt and Brooks this week said they would be willing to participate in a debate between the three frontrunners, including one being organized by the Alabama Republican Party, and criticized Durant for not agreeing.

“I’ve agreed to multiple proposed debates between myself, Mike Durant and Mo Brooks. Congressman Brooks, to his credit, has also agreed. Why won’t Mr. Durant?” Britt wrote on Twitter this week.

A Durant campaign spokesman did not respond to an email and a telephone message seeking comment.

The GOP primary in the conservative state will likely decide who succeeds GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, who is retiring. The three Republicans are considered frontrunners in next month’s GOP primary for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Richard Shelby.

Durant is a businessman best known as the helicopter pilot shot down and held prisoner in the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident. Britt is Shelby’s former chief of staff and the former head of a state business group. Brooks represents Alabama’s 5th Congressional District after first being elected in 2010. Brooks, who voted against certifying President Joe Biden’s election win, was initially endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Trump rescinded the endorsement last month.

Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl said the party offered to host a Senate debate as a resource to GOP voters and to the candidates. He said they had floated several possible dates to the campaigns.

“Mo Brooks agreed to participate. Mike Durant could not work it out, and Katie Britt basically said if Mike Durant can’t make it, she was not interested,” Wahl said.

Wahl said it is “unlikely at this point” that the debate will happen.

A spokesman for Brooks criticized both Britt and Durant on Wednesday.

“Mo Brooks is proud of his conservative record and is willing to debate anybody. If his opponents are ready to face the voters and quit the Hidin’ Joe Biden approach, they know where to find us,” Brooks spokesman Will Hampson wrote in a texted response.

A spokesman for the Britt campaign said that they are “100% in for a three-person debate.”

“No one knows what Mike Durant really believes, because he is hiding from debates, forums, the media, and questions from voters on the campaign trail … The only logical conclusion is that the character Mike Durant plays on TV doesn’t match the person he is in real life,” Sean Ross wrote in an emailed statement.

It is not unusual for safe incumbents to refuse to debate, believing they have nothing to gain. but much to risk, by putting themselves on a debate stage. Shelby refused to debate a primary challenger in 2016, a decision Britt, as his then campaign spokeswoman, defended by saying Shelby had a record that was already well known to state voters. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey in 2018 did not debate primary challengers or Democratic challenger Walt Maddox.

Steve Flowers, a political commentator, said this is different in that it is an open seat with no incumbent for the powerful office. He said Durant appears to be trying to “run out the clock” and run a race that depends mostly on television advertising.

“I call him a phantom candidate,” said Flowers.