CAMP HILL - The race for the Democratic Party’s nomination in Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District is quickly becoming one of record vs. vision.

For the second time in five days, candidates Eugene DePasquale, the current Pennsylvania Auditor General from North York, and Tom Brier, an attorney and author from Derry Township making his first race for elective office, squared off in a public forum. And once again there was far more agreement than difference between them on broad policy direction on most federal issues.

But the unavoidable contrast is in how they are making that case.

DePasquale’s emphasis is squarely on his record in both the state House - where he served three terms representing the City of York - and as Pennsylvania Auditor General since 2012, a tenure in which he argues he and his staff have done the hard, independent work of making government perform better and stretching tax dollars further.

It is a “you-know-what-you’re-getting” kind of argument that lets DePasquale argue that he is the party’s best choice to take on the incumbent, U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Carroll Township, in a district that President Donald Trump carried by a 54.7 percent to 45.3 percent margin over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

In that same 2016 campaign cycle, as DePasquale likes to point out, he was the only one of four other statewide Democratic candidates to carry the present-day 10th, outpolling his Republican foe by 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent in DePasquale’s bid for a second term as Auditor General.

Brier, meanwhile, offers voters a more purely progressive vision marked by support for policies like the House Democrats’ Green New Deal to combat climate change, or his proposal that the government take an equity stake in firms that use federally-funded research in future private-sector applications to help make sure their successes are shared with everyone.

Brier, again on Sunday, also tried to sow doubts about DePasquale’s ideological purity. Brier pointed to episodes in his opponent’s record like a 2011 vote for a Congressional redistricting map that saw Democrats’ votes diluted statewide in a plan designed to maximize the size of the state’s Republican delegation to Congress. He also cited DePasquale’s acceptance of campaign contributions from corporate political action committees; Brier has sworn off such contributions.

He saw his biggest opening Sunday in a question about good government reforms the candidates would back. DePasquale said he would back campaign finance reform at the federal level that would unwind the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision that eliminated limits on political spending by independent political action committees.

Critics have said the 2010 decision has made federal campaigns more reliant on money than ever before, especially from outside super-PACS that can be harder for the public to track.

The problem, Brier said, is “We can talk about Citizens United, but you have to run on a platform that doesn’t take corporate money to have credibility to actually say it. And so Eugene’s taken corporate money his whole career... Democracy’s broken for a reason, and that’s because we have politicians running for office who refuse to step back and not take corporate money.”

Brier then segued to the Congressional maps bill, which was crafted at a time when Republicans controlled the governor’s office (Tom Corbett), and held majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly.

“You know you talk hard about fighting against corruption," Brier said to DePasquale. “Where was the fight there on the one issue that deprived Democrats of equal representation in government for a decade? That’s why we’re in this situation: It’s because we didn’t have politicians stand on principle at the very moment when we really needed it."

The bill in question passed 136-61. DePasquale was one of 36 House Democrats who joined 100 Republicans in supporting it, while 53 opposed. The maps were eventually overturned and redrawn by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in a 2018 ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters.

“There is a criminal operation in the White House," Brier said, pressing his attack. “We need people who run on principle. We need to get money out of politics, and we need to prioritize the fact that we give people an equal say in their representation.”

DePasquale immediately went back to his record.

“You can look at my entire tenure in public life and see regardless of who donates to me, I take on the tough fights.”

He touted his audits of the Corbett Administration’s regulation of the Marcellus Shale drilling that led to the hiring of 55 additional state inspectors; that discovered alarming rates of unanswered phone calls to the state child abuse hot line by Gov. Tom Wolf’s Department of Human Services; and that called out police departments that failed to prioritization of rape kits, or school districts in heavily Democratic cities that found misuse of taxpayer dollars.

But he also made no apologies for running his campaigns - including this campaign for Congress - under the rules as they exist today. It would be tremendously naive to proceed any other way, DePasquale said, in a race where Perry is expected to receive strong backing from conservative financiers like the billionaire Charles Koch.

“You only get to govern if you win,” DePasquale reminded Sunday’s attendees. “I got into this to fight and win on behalf of the people of this district, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

As of the candidates’ last quarterly filings, DePasquale had $468,000 on hand for the primary campaign, compared to Brier’s $203,000. The eventual Democratic nominee is also likely to receive a large amount of national assistance in the general election campaign if the party continues to see Perry as one of the more vulnerable Republican incumbents.

Brier went back to the gerrymandering vote in his closing.

“Eugene said it earlier: ‘The best predictor of future behavior, is to look at past behavior.' His past behavior shows that at the very moment we really needed him to stand on principle, he voted for an unconstitutional gerrymandering bill. I promise you, I would never do that... I promise that I would never support the expansion of fracking. I promise you that I won’t take corporate money....

“In this critical election year, we have to vote our values. That’s the only thing that has been proven to work in history,” Brier said.

DePasquale, who had already closed, demanded a chance to respond.

“It is amazing, when we are trying to bring unity... that there would be a cheap shot thrown to try and divide us,” DePasquale said.

While not directly defending his vote for the 2011 Congressional map, DePasquale said his legislative record also included an unsuccessful push for redistricting reform in Pennsylvania before that map was drafted. He again stressed his history of fighting for better government no matter who that takes him up against, and argued that’s a tested record that voters in the 10th know they can rely on.

“Many of our issues and our positions are the exact same or pretty close... The biggest difference is not where we stand, but on what we’ve actually done," DePasquale said. “I’ve taken on the tough fights, I’ve taken on bullies all over Pennsylvania, and I’ve won.”

Sunday’s debate at the Camp Hill borough building was sponsored by the citizens group Capital Region Stands Up. Perry, who is unopposed for the Republican nomination, was invited but did not attend.

The race in the 10th District is being listed by national analysts as one of the hottest Congressional contests in the country in the 2020 cycle, in part because of the spirited battle political newcomer George Scott gave Perry in 2018.

Politically, both Democrats would mark a dramatic turn from Perry, a Republican who is seeking his fifth term and second in the present-day 10th, which covers all of Dauphin County, the eastern half of Cumberland County, and the northern half of York County.

The primary election will be held April 28.