Bass is skipping a debate to replatform and hire a meme game consultancy, period. Raman is doing exactly the same thing and just jumped on CNN and repudiated her former "defund the police" stance.
They are panicking, but there's nothing more to be read into skipping a debate other than neither ginch wanting to feed Pratt's Meme Machine.

That’s one explanation...mine’s another.
I doubt she’s dropping out.