'Two competing visions': Robinson, Stein set to run unprecedented race for NC governor
Republican Mark Robinson and Democrat Josh Stein cruised to primary victories Tuesday, paving the way for what’s expected to be an expensive, contentious and unprecedented North Carolina gubernatorial race.
The next eight months in North Carolina are expected to feature one of the most intensely watched governor’s races in the 2024 elections. The two main political parties are eyeing not only the seat itself, but also the opportunities that the race for governor presents to tip this key swing state in their favor in the presidential election.
Robinson, the Republican lieutenant governor, has many similarities to likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. They’ve endorsed one another. Stein, the Democratic attorney general, has the endorsement of current Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to replace him.
Stein and Robinson took jabs at each other in their acceptance speeches Tuesday night. Robinson said Stein, a Harvard Law School graduate, is out of touch with blue-collar workers. Robinson has a long history of financial problems, including bankruptcies and criminal convictions for writing bad checks, and he has embraced that history as something that’ll help him understand people’s problems.
“I have an opponent who doesn’t understand what it’s like to be at work and have the boss man come and take you to a room, sit you down and tell you, ‘We’re moving this plant to Mexico, and there’s nothing you can do about it,’” Robinson said in his victory speech Tuesday.
Stein invoked Robinson’s penchant for conspiracy theories — he has previously referred to death estimates during the Holocaust as “hogwash” — as well as Robinson’s vocal opposition to LGBTQ rights and support for stricter regulations on abortion.
“We’re at a crossroads,” Stein said in his victory speech Tuesday. “And the choice before us? Two competing visions of North Carolina.”
Republicans are almost certain to keep control of the state legislature, due to new political districts GOP leaders drew last year that heavily favor their party. But state and national Democratic groups plan to spend millions of dollars with a goal of flipping enough seats to break Republicans’ veto-proof supermajority.
If Robinson wins, Republican lawmakers will be in position to easily advance their legislative goals even if they lose the supermajority. But if Democrats can break the supermajority and win the governor’s race, then Stein will have substantial leverage to act as a roadblock to Republicans, or to force them to negotiate on high-profile legislation like the state budget.
Two of the top priorities for Republican voters, whose future could depend on the result of the governor’s race, are looser gun laws and stricter abortion laws.
- There’s a grassroots conservative push to end concealed carry permits and let any adult carry guns in public without needing to pass a test or get law enforcement approval. More than two dozen GOP-led states have passed similar rules in the last few years, leaving North Carolina a notable outlier.
- On abortion, Robinson has previously called for “a bill saying you can’t have an abortion in North Carolina for any reason” — as a few other Southern states have done — but has also sometimes said he supports a six-week limit. Abortions used to be allowed up to approximately 24 weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court undid Roe v. Wade; North Carolina now bans them after 12 weeks with some exceptions.
Voters in both parties recognize the high stakes, contributing tens of millions of dollars already to Stein and Robinson. It’s expected to be the most expensive election for governor in state history.
As of March 1, Stein’s campaign had raised $19.1 million and had $12.7 million left in the bank. Robinson’s campaign had raised $10.7 million and had $4.4 million still in the bank. Cooper’s winning 2020 reelection campaign spent $41 million.
Presidential implications
It’s not just state politics that could be affected by who wins the governor’s race. The race could also play a role in swinging the presidential election.
Republicans could field one of the most far-right slates of candidates in years if Robinson wins, at least on social issues. Trump, who was projected to win North Carolina’s GOP presidential primary Tuesday, is expected to top the GOP ticket. And conservative Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop is leaving Congress to run for state attorney general. All three are particularly vocal on cultural issues popular with the Christian right, especially anti-LGBTQ stances. Bishop was the lead author of the controversial 2016 law known as HB2 when he served in the state legislature.
The trio of controversial candidates could inspire more Democrats to come to the polls, or cause some more moderate Republicans to vote Democratic in at least some races.
One of the GOP challengers Robinson defeated Tuesday, Bill Graham, said he’s concerned that by nominating Robinson, Republican voters have now made it more likely that Democrats will win the governor’s mansion and, possibly, the White House.
"Mark Robinson is an unelectable candidate in the general election in North Carolina, and he puts a conservative future at risk for everyone, from the courthouse to the White House,” Graham wrote.
On the other hand, Trump is well known for attracting support from people who hadn’t voted much, if at all, in the past. And while Cooper won the past two gubernatorial races by winning over some Trump supporters, it’s possible that those same voters might back Robinson this year if he’s seen as more closely aligned with Trump than past GOP nominees for governor.
Even small margins matter in North Carolina: Trump won North Carolina by just 1.5% of the vote in 2020, and in 2016 the governor’s race went to a recount, with Cooper winning by a fraction of a percent.
The governor has long held limited power in North Carolina compared with other states. But the office still can veto bills from the legislature, appoint members of state boards and commissions and direct policy choices ranging from economic development strategies to environmental regulation. And the office commands an immense amount of public attention, giving the governor the power of the bully pulpit to reflect — or shape — public opinion on issues big and small.
Historic vote
No matter who wins, North Carolina voters will make history in November by electing either the state’s first Black governor or the state’s first Jewish governor — at least as long as the unofficial results hold. It could signal a sea change in a state whose recent population boom has been driven almost entirely by its urban core and an influx of new, minority residents.
North Carolina has been led by a governor or similar official since 1712, under first British and later American rule. For 308 of those 312 years the state’s chief executive has been a white, Christian man. The only exception was Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat and white, Christian woman who served from 2009-13.
There will almost certainly be another break in tradition in 2025, however, when either Stein or Robinson is sworn in as the state’s 76th governor.
Robinson already made history in 2020 as the first Black Republican to win any major office in North Carolina since Reconstruction. His victory Tuesday makes him the first Black gubernatorial nominee from either major party in state history. Stein became in 2016, when he was elected attorney general, the only Jewish person to ever win any statewide election in North Carolina.
There will also be candidates from the Libertarian and Green parties on the ballot in November. But no third party candidate has garnered more than a tiny sliver of the vote for governor in recent history, and there are no indications that that might change this year.
A changing North Carolina
The likelihood of North Carolina soon having either a Black or Jewish governor is particularly notable in a state where the Ku Klux Klan — a hate group targeting Black, Jewish and Catholic communities — remains active, yet hobbled in support.
The only North Carolina governor to ever be impeached, William Woods Holden, was removed from office by white supremacists in the state legislature specifically because of his efforts to crack down on the nascent KKK in the years following the Civil War. In recent years, numerous universities, towns and state agencies have struggled with how to address the large number of statues and government buildings that honor former political leaders with explicitly racist views.
But times are changing. The 2020 Census shows North Carolina grew by 9.5% since 2010. It’s now the ninth-largest state in the country, and growing at a faster rate than many of those above it.
Despite the state’s massive overall growth,however, most counties actually lost population. North Carolina’s boom has been mostly driven by Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte and their suburbs, as well as areas in the mountains and the coast popular with retirees. Wake and Mecklenburg counties are now each bigger than eight different U.S. states, with more than 1.1 million people each.
As the state becomes more urban, it’s also becoming more diverse. North Carolina added more than 900,000 residents between 2010 and 2020. Less than 10% were white.
Hispanic people made up about one-third of all new residents, and people who identified as Black or multi-racial made up another third. Asian residents accounted for another 15% of the new residents, now making up 3% of the state’s total population.
