What did Klobuchar and Demuth leave unanswered?

It is 7:15, 12 days to go until Minnesota voters head to the ballot box for the midterm elections and the major party candidates in the governor's race are laying out their final pitches. Amy Klobuchar and Lisa Damuth scoring off in their final debate last night. You watched it right here on Fox 9. This morning we are breaking down the big moments with political science professor David Schultz from Hamline University David, good to see you this morning. My pleasure, Thank you for having me again. Of course. First off, any surprises from last night that you took away from the debate? Not a real surprise, but if I were going to do a real summary of the debate last night, Klobuchar's running against Trump and Damuth is running against Walz. And what I mean by that, to a large extent, a lot of the debate last night, if you listen to it repeatedly, they kept coming back and trying to associate the other candidate with somebody, again, Trump or Walz, and really an effort to try to really what? Get votes by running against the opponent and saying, I'm not them. I'm not Walz. I'm not Trump. Right. And let's touch on the big ticket items from the candidates. The first is affordability. Here's what each of them had to say. Because of the uncertainty and the pressures put on by Democrat control here in the state, we have mandates on our businesses. We have increasing taxes, yet you've seen an estimated $9 billion of taxes. So making things affordable and respecting people is the start and how I will lead as governor. I'm not going to raise taxes, and if I can, I will lower them, including on Social Security, because I believe that with the headwinds we're seeing right now from Donald Trump, from the tariffs that my opponent has said are effective, which amount to a $2,000 tariff tax on every family in Minnesota, from the war in Iran, which I have voted against now 14 times. So, David, did either candidate prove their point on that matter? Well, they both talked about the fact that they support cutting taxes, and they both basically are saying that they want to do something to address affordability. but to a large extent a lot of the affordability issues are probably beyond their ability to handle they do deal with issues such as tariffs such as a whole bunch of other consumer costs that are way beyond control but i just found it interesting that even though there's not much they can do you know try to keep government spending down try to cut taxes they feel feel like they have to talk about that issue because it's one of the top issues on people's minds i think the one thing that Damuth also does, not so much in this clip, but elsewhere, is also tries to connect the fraud issue to affordability versus Klobuchar trying to connect the affordability issue to Donald Trump, tariffs, the war in Iran. So they're both talking about the issue, but emphasizing different ways of thinking about what the causes of that affordability issue are, pardon me. Yeah, the blurred line between federal and state there. The next big topic, fraud in Minnesota. Here's a snippet of what the candidates had to say about fraud. I look at what we need to do, the top to bottom audit, an entirely new team that I will bring in. Protections to whistleblowers, an issue I've worked on extensively in the United States Senate, but more. We need to vet these contracts before they come in, and there needs to be surprise audits. Fraud unchecked here in the state of Minnesota has gone far too long and it has finally come to the surface. The thing that I will do on day one is I am going to be firing all commissioners, choosing new commissioners that are expert in their field that will carry out the accountability and transparency that is needed in our state. And there you hear Lisa Damoth laying out specifics versus I just want to stop fraud. How did you feel they answered that question last night? Well, again, both of them are coming from, I would say, the talking points that they've been using. Klobuchar, again, in this clip, doesn't talk about the fact that she's a prosecutor. And she said, yes, people should go to jail. She's going to do an audit. DeMuth is emphasizing, I'm going to basically fire a bunch of people. But what both of them, I think I'd like to hear them talk a little bit about is more of the structural reasons in terms of why the fraud is there why why what's missing from it because many businesses many people listening to it know that lots of businesses have all types of internal audit mechanisms built in they've got accounts receivable accounts payable and i would like to see have heard some discussion from both of them regarding how they're going to change the basic structure of of let's say spending and accountability in the state because in many ways, that's part of the problem also, too. And again, I didn't hear either of them really talking much about that. Right. All right. Well, it was quite the debate. An hour's worth here on Fox 9. And David, thanks for helping us break it down this morning. David Schultz from Hamlin University. We'll see you next time. My pleasure. Thank you. You bet.