The gloves appear to be off in Oklahoma’s Republican gubernatorial runoff election.
After former Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett and Gateway Mortgage founder Kevin Stitt's debate last week, a pro-Cornett group attacked Stitt’s business record.
"If Kevin Stitt couldn't be trusted to run a business in three other states, how can Oklahomans trust him to run ours now?" the ad said, referring to 2009 regulatory actions against Gateway Mortgage in Arkansas, Illinois and Georgia.
A Stitt group ad bashed Cornett for not being conservative enough.
"Mayor Cornett's not just a never-Trumper, Cornett defended sanctuary cities and said building President Trump's border wall 'ain't going to get us anywhere,'" the ad said.
Cornett rebutted those claims, saying he has a good working relationship with President Trump and thinks the border would be better secured with technology, not a wall.
Stitt said Cornett is trying to make up ground.
"It’s just typical politicians, talking about something that happened 10 years ago and it was a minor infraction, and we’re currently licensed in 41 states. We can do business in all 50 states," Stitt said.
Both candidates have called on the other to run clean campaigns. Cornett said it doesn’t bode well for the general election.
"Absolutely it hurts Republicans’ chances to be successful in November when the Republican candidates start attacking each other in August," Cornett said.
The winner of the Republican runoff Aug. 28 will face Democrat Drew Edmondson in the November general election.
