BATON ROUGE — WBRZ is hosting a televised debate for candidates running for Louisiana's Sixth Congressional District seat, set for Oct. 9 at the Manship Theatre in Baton Rouge at 7 p.m.

Five candidates qualified for the debate based on pre-established criteria WBRZ adopted earlier this month, before any polling was done. Those candidates are Rick Edmonds, Chauna Banks, Blake Miguez, Lindsay "Rubia" Garcia and Patrick "Pat" Forbes.

The criteria required candidates to be certified on the Nov. 3 primary ballot, still be active in the race, and rank among the top five in an independent poll of likely voters in the district.

JMC Analytics and Polling conducted the survey from Sept. 19 to 21, which was funded by the Greater Baton Rouge Economic Foundation.

The poll surveyed 790 likely voters in the Sixth Congressional District, defined as registered voters who cast a ballot at least once starting with the November 2024 elections. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percent at a 95 percent confidence interval.

Edmonds led the field with 13.8 percent support, followed by Banks at 13.2 percent, Miguez at 9.7 percent, Garcia at 7.7 percent and Forbes at 7.6 percent. The remaining five candidates each polled below 4 percent, and 35.7 percent of respondents were undecided.