Senate Candidates Meet for First Debate

During the debate, Democrat Richard Blumenthal brought up his twenty years experience as state Attorney General as one of the main reasons to vote for him over Republican Linda McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. Both sides weren't shy about highlighting their different backgrounds. From the start, McMahon portrayed Blumenthal as a career politician who knows nothing about the private sector.

 

"You have my opponent who's been in government all of his life, he's about growing government. I'm about growing the economy." 

 

Later, Blumenthal fired back by pointing out that McMahon's business experience included the WWE taking state tax incentives and then reducing staff.

 

"I know that when you take tax credits meant to create jobs and then cut your workforce by 10% and take home $46 million, something's wrong with this picture about a so called jobs creator."

 

McMahon defended the WWE saying layoffs are a hard part of doing business but she said restructuring and the tax credits helped the company create 52 digital media jobs. 

 

Both candidates were also asked about the accuracy of campaign ads. Blumenthal was called on to explain his misstatements about serving in Vietnam after McMahon's campaign released a new commercial Monday with video of him talking about his service. 

 

"On a few occasions out of hundreds when I commented on it, I described it inaccurately, and I regret it, it was not intentional."

 

And McMahon was asked to explain her position on the minimum wage after multiple media outlets reported last week that she was open to reducing the wage which ended up in a Blumenthal ad.

 

"I would never advocate lowering or reducing the minimum wage, that is not what I said. I said we need to take a look at whether or not we need to increase the minimum wage."

 

Aside from domestic policy issues, both candidates were also asked whether they support the death penalty in reference to ongoing Cheshire home invasion trial. On that subject, both candidates agreed saying they supported capitol punishment.

 

The debate comes at at time when 4% of likely voters are undecided, among Independents it increases to 6%.

 

For WNPR, I'm Lucy Nalpathanchil.