All three candidates running for the U.S. House in Montana have agreed to participate in a debate at Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell on Sunday, Oct. 19.

The Inter Lake will host the debate, which is tentatively scheduled to start at 5 p.m.

Republican Ryan Zinke and Democrat John Lewis had previously agreed to a debate in Kalispell on that date to be sponsored by a Missoula television station. When the station opted to instead hold the debate in Missoula, the plans fell through.

“The Inter Lake was able to step in at that time and preserve the Kalispell debate,” said Managing Editor Frank Miele. “Zinke and Lewis have both confirmed their participation. In addition, Libertarian Mike Fellows will join them for a well-rounded forum on the issues.”

In other debate news, the Zinke campaign announced Friday that the GOP candidate would arrive in Billings to participate in a debate against Lewis on Monday night. That debate had been the source of considerable controvery when Zinke said he could not attend because of a prior engagement, and Lewis accused him of ducking out.

Monday’s debate will be the second meeting between the two candidates, vying to replace U.S. Rep. Steve Daines, who is leaving his seat to run for the Senate. Zinke, a former Navy SEAL and state senator, and Lewis, a longtime aide to former U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, debated in Butte in June, along with Fellows. Miele was a panelist at that debate, which was sponsored by the Montana Newspaper Association.

Zinke previously declined to participate in the Billings debate hosted by The Billings Gazette and Yellowstone Public Radio, citing a scheduling conflict. The sponsors of the debate decided to change the format instead of canceling, turning it into a forum with Lewis. Fellows was not invited.

Zinke’s campaign released a statement after 5 p.m. on Friday that he will participate.

“I made this debate a high priority, made the necessary schedule changes to allow me to attend, and I appreciate the willingness of the Gazette to welcome us to the debate,” Zinke said in the statement.

Campaign spokeswoman Shelby DeMars sent a brief statement in an email that said the campaign began looking into rescheduling Zinke’s schedule “a couple of weeks ago,” but not when the decision was made.

“We have been working to see if it was even possible to rearrange meetings and travel plans so that we could make it, but we weren’t going to confirm until we knew for 100 percent certain that we could make it to the debate,” her statement said.

Lewis’ campaign received no prior warning of the change, but he is ready to face Zinke, campaign spokeswoman Kathy Weber said.

“He had hoped from the beginning that Zinke would do the right thing and show up, and it’s unfortunate that it took (Zinke) this long to decide a debate in Billings is worth his time,” Weber said. “It’s a testament to Mr. Zinke’s character that it took weeks of public shaming to attend a debate that he should have wanted to attend in the first place.”

Monday’s debate will be held at 7 p.m. at the Montana State University-Billings Petro Theater.

Another debate is scheduled for Saturday in Bozeman.