Confidence or concern: What's behind Ted Cruz's call for five debates with Beto O'Rourke? Generally, candidates expecting victory find ways to dodge debates with the underdogs. But Cruz seems to relish a chance to scrap with O'Rourke.

John C Moritz Austin Bureau USA TODAY NETWORK | Corpus Christi

Show Caption Hide Caption U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke gear up for 2018 The winner of next year's race for the U.S. Senate in Texas will be an Ivy League-educated guy in his mid-40s with a picture-book family — the similarities end there.

AUSTIN — Political wisdom holds that candidates with the most built-in advantages either ignore challenges to debate their opponents or demand as many ground rules as they can get away with before agreeing to any one-on-one confrontations.

That's why Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick treated Democratic challenger Mike Collier's throw-down as if it were a speck of dandruff on his sport coat. The task of brushing off Collier was left to Patrick's political aide, who blithely suggested the Democrat, an accountant and former candidate for state comptroller, lacks even a basic understanding of state government.

In the governor's race, widely favored Republican incumbent Greg Abbott has agreed to one debate with Democrat Lupe Valdez but the two camps are proposing differing dates and differing venues. It remains an open question whether a matchup will take place at all.

But in Texas' high-profile race for the U.S. Senate, the traditional debate-challenge norms don't seem to apply. Incumbent Ted Cruz is a Republican seeking re-election in perhaps the reddest state on the political map. His bombastic 2013 arrival in Washington, D.C., followed quickly by his nearly successful 2016 run for the GOP presidential nomination has made Cruz a household name in his home state.

Yet last week, Cruz challenged Democrat Beto O'Rourke to — not one, not two —but five hourlong debates.

Although O'Rourke, a three-term congressman from El Paso, has raised an eye-popping amount of money for his campaign, polls suggest he remains unknown to as much as one-fourth of Texas voters.

Debating O'Rouke could be 'major risk' for Cruz

And that begs the question: Why would Cruz offer O'Rourke five separate platforms to not only ingratiate himself to Texans, but also to take as many potshots as he could in each matchup?

"There is major risk for Cruz in debating O’Rourke," said University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus. "Like the University of Texas playing Texas State in football, there is always a chance a bad night risks an embarrassing loss."

Countering that argument is none other than Ted Cruz, or at least his history and reputation. During his college years, Cruz was a champion debater for Princeton University. As Texas solicitor general, he argued nine cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

And as a contender for the GOP presidential nomination two years ago, Cruz was one the few contenders in the 17-candidate field to participate in all 12 party-sanctioned debates and was never relegated to the so-called kids' table. He was generally among those at the center of the stage, and seemed to relish going toe-to-toe trading insults with Donald Trump.

"Donald, adults learn not to interrupt," Cruz during a debate in February 2013 admonished the future president who had moments before dinged the Texan as "the single biggest liar."

The exposure provided by a series of debates could help O'Rourke raise his profile beyond his core of left-of-center supporters eager to break the Republicans' stranglehold on Texas. But compared with Cruz, he's a debate novice. Even though though during the primary O'Rourke said he'd be happy to debate his Democratic rivals, he never did.

"O’Rourke is used to favorable crowds and extemporaneous speeches while Cruz has extensive experience debating in traditional political debate formats," Rottinghaus said. "That imbalance favors Cruz."

Motives for debate unknown

But one of the latent values of debates is their shelf lives. Under the proposal Cruz laid out and which O'Rourke is considering, all five debates would take place on Friday nights. That would conflict with high school football games for some voters and weekend social gatherings for others.

Social media platforms could amplify any well-timed zinger or any gaffe gone viral.

The race, coming during a midterm election where Trump's sketchy approval ratings suggest a strong drift toward the Democrats, could be a nail-biter. Even though polls show O'Rourke as something of an enigma, they also show Cruz as something of a pariah, with just as many would-be voters liking him as loathing him.

That suggests Cruz's push for debates could be fueled by equal parts self-confidence, polling-data uncertainty and O'Rourke's fundraising prowess.

"If O’Rourke didn’t have any political energy or momentum," Rottinghaus said, "Cruz would just ignore him."

Just like most of the other statewide Republican incumbents are brushing off their Democratic challengers.

John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at John.Moritz@caller.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.

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