Republican Mike Braun and Democrat Jennifer McCormick drew sharp contrasts with each other in the first televised debate in this fall’s gubernatorial race.

On the debate hosted by Fox59/CBS4 in Indianapolis, both candidates spoke about the policy proposals they’ve released in recent weeks — from property taxes to utility costs, teacher pay to affordable housing.

But on so many of those issues, the bottom line came down to this: They said it’s the other party that’s to blame for any problems.

For Braun, that meant tying McCormick to national Democrats.

“When I travel the state, they’re worried about the economy,” Braun said. “The federal government has been run by her party over the last four years and we’ve got some of the worst economic results we’ve had, ever.”

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McCormick kept her focus at the state level.

“In Indiana — that we’re talking about today — that is 47th in the nation in quality of life, 41st in the nation in educational attainment,” McCormick said. “We could go on and on, and some of the statistics that are alarming have been under 20 years of one-party rule, under Republicans.”

Libertarian Donald Rainwater was excluded by station owner Nexstar for not meeting its polling threshold.

Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.