The race for governor of New York this year has been dominated by a debate over public safety, crime and how to fairly treat people accused of breaking the law.

On Thursday as President Joe Biden touched down in Syracuse, the debate turned to an even broader topic: New York's economy.

Biden's visit to tout a multi-billion dollar investment by Micron Technology, Inc. and New York state to eventually bring thousands of jobs to the central New York region also served as a chance for Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Republican opponent Rep. Lee Zeldin to cast their economic platform as the best for the state.

The backdrop of the visit was clear: Voters are concerned about rising inflation and the cost of living, ranking it above hot-button issues like crime and abortion as their top concerns with early voting set to get underway.

Hochul, on Thursday with Biden, pointed to efforts to revive the upstate New York economy, which has struggled for generations with job losses and population losses. The governor pointed to her own western New York roots as evidence that she understands the problem better than her downstate predecessors ever did.

"I knew what it was like when unemployment was 15 percent, when all the members of my big Irish Catholic family who grew up in an area called Lackawanna in Buffalo," she said at Onondaga County Community College.

The state is turning over subsidies and tax incentives worth billions of dollars to Micron in order to spur high-tech computer chip manufacturing in the region. The move is being hailed as potentially even more explosive for central New York than GlobalFoundries' impact on the Capital Region.

"This is how we can regain that sense of exceptionalism that we've always had as New Yorkers. It's who we are," Hochul said. 'We build things. We grow things. We imagine things, and I knew we couldn't let this one go."

New York is in an ongoing competition with other states to get jobs like the ones Micron is pledging to bring. And it's not just low-tax states like Texas, but also neighboring Massachusetts, with its extensive and world-famous research universities.

Still, Zeldin pointed to New York's long-standing status as a state known for its high taxes and poor business climate. Rather than offer tax incentives to a handful of favored companies, Zeldin on Thursday said the approach should be far broader.

"The business climate in other states is so much better, so the businesses just move to the state," Zeldin said. "There’s no way to get Micron to come to New York for the low taxes."

Zeldin has pledged an across-the-board cut on taxes in New York. He wants to end the state's ban on fracking in order to drill for gas in the Southern Tier region.

Republicans could also point this week to the Tax Foundation once again finding New York ranks 49th out of 50 states for its business climate, ahead of only New Jersey.

"They aren't coming here because agency are run with great pro-business culture," Zeldin said. "We have to look at why they are coming here and how they got here and what it took to get them here. The fact that we have reached the point that we have to essential bribe a businesses to come to New York with billions in tax breaks highlights that this state is moving in the wrong direction."

The jobs Micron is promising won't come for years, and it's not entirely clear why New York economic development officials expect 9,000 jobs will be created. The fiscally conservative Empire Center think tank on Thursday called for the release of an economic assessment study of the deal.

At the same time, voters are anxious about the economy today as the price of gas and groceries ticks upward.

Still, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon in an interview noted the effort to lure Micron in the first place was a rare example of Democrats and Republicans working together.

"It was a bipartisan process," he said, "and when you work together, you can accomplish great things when you have common goals."