The race for NC governor has begun. NC will face a defining choice | Opinion

Democratic North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein has been running for governor for years.

On Wednesday, he made it official with the release of a video announcing his candidacy, describing his priorities and attacking his likely Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.

The landscape of this 2024 gubernatorial campaign to succeed Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who is limited by statute to two terms, is still unsettled. That Stein moved relatively early to enter the race suggests that he may be trying to foreclose the possibility of a primary challenger.

Robinson, meanwhile, may face a primary against state Treasurer Dale Folwell. And there may be others if Republicans grow skittish about getting behind Robinson, a conservative firebrand serving in his first elected office.

For now, though, it looks like it’s Stein vs. Robinson. Both have been building for the contest. The latest available finance reports filed in August show Stein had raised more than $4.2 million and had $3.4 million in cash on hand. Robinson had raised more than $3.5 million and had $2 million in cash on hand.

A contest between Stein, 56, a Triangle-based, Ivy League-educated lawyer, and Robinson, 54, a Greensboro native and a U.S. Army veteran who rose to prominence by defending gun rights, seems both inevitable and necessary. North Carolina is evenly divided politically, but has swung to the right at the state legislative level with the help of aggressive gerrymandering. Meanwhile, Democrats’ lackluster turnout in November’s midterm election led to a victory in the U.S. Senate race by far-right Republican Ted Budd.

North Carolina is overdue to make up its mind about whether it’s a swing state trending blue in the manner of Virginia, or a red state at heart that still warms to candidates in the mold of the late Republican Sen. Jesse Helms. The 2024 election may well settle the issue.

North Carolina will be a key presidential battleground state, and the governor’s race will be a referendum on both the Republican-dominated General Assembly and Cooper’s efforts to hold it in check by vetoing 47 bills.

Stein appears eager to make the choice clear for North Carolina. Usually a cautious politician, his announcement video struck a decisively liberal tone by focusing on racial justice and civil rights and emphasizing Robinson’s opposition to abortion rights and LGBTQ rights. With that approach, Stein will look to run up big enough margins in the state’s increasingly blue urban counties to offset increasingly red voting patterns in rural and some suburban counties.

Betting on strong urban votes in a presidential year is a sound strategy. It could be especially so if Republican extremism in the U.S. House and the General Assembly triggers a backlash against Republican candidates. But the strategy goes against the approach that allowed Cooper to win twice despite Donald Trump’s carrying the state in 2016 and 2020.

Cooper’s eastern North Carolina roots helped him win support from more conservative voters. Stein, despite his two statewide victories, does not have Cooper’s natural connection with voters outside North Carolina’s urban centers. In 2020, Cooper won election over Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest 51.5 percent to 47 percent. Stein squeaked into a second term by defeating Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill by 50.1 percent to 49.8 percent.

For now, Stein looks fortunate in his opposition. Robinson is highly popular with cultural conservatives, but that strength will become a weakness as he seeks support from more moderate voters. And his style may be ill-suited for a governor’s race. North Carolina voters have supported strongly ideological candidates for federal offices, but they tend to prefer practical managers as governor.

Pope “Mac” McCorkle, a professor at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and a former political consultant, told me Robinson is a ”Jesse Helms type” who could rally the faithful in a Senate race. But when it comes to choosing a governor, McCorkle said, voters say, “I want somebody who is going to deal with roads and hurricanes and bring business in. We don’t need an ideological firebrand.”

Still, since Trump’s surprise victory in 2016 and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ rise in Florida, political prognosticators should be aware of the appeal of candidates who speak powerfully for voters who feel they are not being heard.

Chris Cooper, a western Carolina University political scientist, said it would be a mistake to underestimate Robinson’s instinct for connecting with conservative voters with a strong and unfiltered speaking style. “Robinson carries a room like no other politician in North Carolina,” he said.

“Mark Robinson is well known and he’s good at drawing attention to himself,” Cooper said. “He’s the kind of candidate with a lot of positives and a lot of negatives. For Josh Stein the challenge will be telling people who Josh Stein is and for Robinson it will be tamping down what people know he is.”

The race for governor is early, but it’s already interesting. It looks like North Carolina voters will have a defining choice to make.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-829-4512, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com