Candidates spar in first general election gubernatorial debate

Two of Indiana’s three gubernatorial candidates spent an hour Wednesday night trading barbs and promoting their campaign platforms in the first televised debate of the general election, hosted by WXIN-TV Channel 59 and WXIN-TV Channel 4.

Republican Mike Braun and Democrat Jennifer McCormick each met the polling threshold established by the networks for the gubernatorial debate. A third candidate, Libertarian Donald Rainwater, didn’t meet that standard but will appear onstage for Thursday’s gubernatorial debate hosted by WISH-TV.

Topics included a recently manipulated advertisement from the Braun campaign and the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor saying the other side invoked a “Jezebel spirit.”

The conduct of Braun’s running mate, self-described Christian nationalist Micah Beckwith, prompted the harshest back-and-forth between the nominees, with McCormick repeatedly calling for an apology from the campaign.

“It’s ridiculous. He’s dangerous,” she said of Beckwith.

Braun fired back by saying, “when you’re focusing on a lieutenant governor, that means you’re shaky on what your own plans are going to be. Obviously, in this state, a governor is going to call the shots … when you focus on that, that means you’re afraid you don’t have enough to offer Hoosiers (and) address kitchen table issues.”

But McCormick said she isn’t afraid to lead.

“But I also know, and I’m crystal clear, it’s about character. We need someone at the top of that ticket who will represent us well at the national level, and who will also have a running mate who will serve us well.”

Braun repeatedly tied McCormick to national Democratic policies, though she has never held an elected position as a Democrat. McCormick, meanwhile, pointed to low quality-of-life metrics and education outcomes in Indiana under the last two decades of Republican control and called for a change in leadership.

Gubernatorial debate highlights

Both candidates have released detailed plans outlining their priorities if elected governor, tackling topics such as property taxes, education and economic development.

Moderators asked specifically about ballot initiatives, which have been used in other states to enshrine reproductive health care access. Braun said he was open to such an effort if it gained momentum but affirmed his anti-abortion stance.

“We’re a right to life state,” Braun said, throwing his support behind the state’s near-total abortion ban. “It is a bill that sanctifies life, we’re a state that does that with reasonable exceptions. And I think the people have spoken, the legislature listened and we got a bill that seems to be working.”

Striking that ban has been a key part of McCormick’s campaign and she claimed women have already died due to the ban. She said she would “absolutely” support an effort for ballot questions.

“I’m the only person on stage who’s been pregnant; I’m the only person on this stage who’s given birth … and I understand firsthand the complexities associated with pregnancy,” McCormick said. “I know my opponent said that … he thought we got it right. And when you make comments like that, we put a lot of women’s lives at risk.”

An educator and the state’s last elected superintendent of public instruction, McCormick called for increasing teacher salaries to $60,000, saying “if we can’t get education right, we can’t get the economy right.”

“We do need to pay our teacher the way their non-educator peers are being paid or we’re never going to attract them,” McCormick said. “When I was in office, Indiana was ranked 35th in the nation … since I left, we have fallen to 41st. So we’re going in the wrong direction.”

Braun repeated his call to expand school choice–Indiana currently offers vouchers to nearly all Hoosier families, something that McCormick would “pause” to lift up teacher salaries—and criticized district-level spending.

“If you look at what we invest in a classroom—building, utilities, maintenance, upkeep—including teacher pay, it’s about $245,000 per classroom … you’re putting that much into buildings and maintenance and upkeep, and you’re not getting the most important thing right, which is teacher pay and benefits,” Braun, a former school board member, said. “To me, $60,000 is way too modest.”

Salary increases would be paid by identifying ways to run classrooms more efficiently and not putting money into buildings or operations, he said.

McCormick repeated her call for Indiana to start its own marijuana legalization process, first medicinally followed by recreationally, while Braun said he was open to legalizing the drug for medical purposes. He cautioned, though, that he would weigh law enforcement concerns heavily.

National topics

Gubernatorial debate moderators also asked questions related to national politics, including border security and Medicaid growth.

Braun said the immigration plan of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the latter of whom is running on the Democratic ticket for president, was to “open the borders,” bringing in fentanyl and cartels.

“… now all states are border states and we’re putting up with the complications of it,” Braun said.

McCormick, meanwhile, pointed to Braun’s ‘no’ vote on a bipartisan border funding bill that would have hired more patrol officers, accusing Braun of “playing politics” to sink the measure.

Braun said it would have allowed too many border crossings, though Biden took executive action to enact limitations that would have been included in the bill and border crossings fell.

Nationwide, Medicaid costs are growing alongside general health care costs.

In Indiana, growth in demand for certain services led to a $1 billion shortfall and the end of attendant care wages for parents as well as a waiting list for services for both disabled and elderly Hoosiers. Even more recently, a whistleblower lawsuit accused hospitals and insurers of $700 million in fraud.

“I’ve been on the phone (with) a lot of families who are quite upset because their children or adults are not receiving services that they don’t only need, but they deserve,” McCormick said. “A third of Indiana is on Medicaid, that’s massive … having been in charge of a state agency over half of the state’s budget … I would have had some answers if I would have had a shortfall or misappropriated money to that degree.”

McCormick slightly overestimated the number of Hoosiers on Medicaid, which is closer to one in four Hoosiers following an effort to unwind federal protections under COVID-19.

Braun called the system “broken in general, because it ends up costing too much.”

The federal government pays roughly two-thirds of Medicaid costs for most programs and up to 90% of costs for moderate-income Hoosiers in the expansion population.

“… to make sure that we’re going to be able to afford our share of (Medicaid), it’s going to take someone who has taken on health care in the past. Just because you ran an agency, that doesn’t mean you can translate that,” Braun said, referring to his health care work at the federal level. “Our own state needs to start embracing transparency and competition to make sure our costs for health care are lower.”

In response, McCormick said better education would lead to higher wages, which would fix the issue.

The deadline for Hoosiers to register to vote is Oct. 7. Voter registration status can be checked online at indianavoters.in.gov.

The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.