Walter Dalton
Pat McCrory
Greensboro, NC -- As North Carolina's candidates for governor debated for the first time Wednesday night, News 2 asked an expert to watch and weigh in.
Greensboro College political science professor, Rebecca Klase, said while Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton, a democrat, and former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a republican, debated education, taxes and fracking, all of the questions made their way back to jobs.
Klase said McCrory's stance was clear. He wants to attract jobs by changing the tax structure and making North Carolina more friendly to businesses.
On the other hand, Dalton emphasized how we can improve the abilities of our workers to make them more marketable as employees.
But Klase also added that the candidates both have to work extra hard to reach voters.
"I think the tricky thing about this is that we know so many of our voters, so many residents of our state right now, just have an overall negative perception about government. And so both of these candidates, in some ways, not only have to say, 'I'm experienced', but somehow also convince us they're not a problem of government, whatever that means," said Klase.
Klase also said the candidates were, for the most part, polite to one another. However, that likely won't be the case for the next debates.
"I think we should stay tuned in for the next one...see what kind of attitudes they have in the next one, whether they do start to take on each other a little bit more, I think we will see that," she said.
WFMY News 2