RIO RANCHO – It’s on.

The Tom Udall-Steve Pearce debate on NBC’s Meet the Press, that is.

It’s scheduled for Oct. 12 and will be hosted live in the Washinton studios by Tom Brokaw, Meet the Press executive producer Betsy Fischer confirmed to the Independent in an e-mail on Tuesday afternoon.

Fischer said in her e-mail that the Udall campaign had "agreed to the Oct. 12th date which Pearce camp had already ok’d.  So we have a date!"

"As a matter of background, this will be the fourth cycle of our Senate debate series," Fischer said. She went on to say that the debate would be the fourth cycle of Meet the Press’ Senate debate series.

The Pearce campaign responded to the news after weeks of calling for a debate with Udall.

"We’re happy that they finally have confirmed and no longer are staling and ducking the debates," said Pearce spokesman Brian Phillips. "We continue to press Udall to debate before Oct. 12 because it is important for the people of New Mexico."

Marissa Padilla of the Udall campaign dismissed the notion that the two candidates will not get a chance to debate often before the Nov. 4 general election. She said congressmen Udall and Pearce are scheduled to debate three times In October in addition to next month’s Meet the Press debate.

"As you can see there are plenty of opportunities for the two candidates to debate," Padilla said.

The two candidates are scheduled to meet Oct. 15 on KOB, Oct. 18 on KRQE (co-sponsored by the American Association of Retired People) and Oct. 26 at KOAT (co-sponsored by the Albuquerque Journal).