North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein was elected governor

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein was elected governor Tuesday, defeating Republicans Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson and maintaining Democratic leadership of the chief executive's office in a state where Republicans have recently controlled the legislature and appeals courts.

Stein, a Harvard-educated lawyer, former state senator and the state's top law enforcement official since 2017, will succeed fellow Democrat Roy Cooper, who was term-limited for re-election. He will be the state's first Jewish governor. Robinson's campaign was significantly hampered by a damning report in September that he had posted messages on an online pornography website claiming, among other things, that he was a “black Nazi.”

Democrats have held the governor's mansion for all but four years since 1993, although the GOP has held the legislative majority since 2011.

As was the case during Cooper's term, a key task for Stein will likely be to use his veto stamp to block what he sees as far-right policies. During his eight years as governor, Cooper had mixed success on this front.

Otherwise, Stein's campaign platform largely followed Cooper's policy goals, including increasing funding for public schools, promoting clean energy and ending further Republican restrictions on abortion.

Stein's campaign significantly outspent Robinson, who was seeking to become the state's first black governor.

For months, Stein and his allies used television ads and social media to remind voters of previous inflammatory comments Robinson had made on abortion, women and other issues LGBTQ+ people They said it made him too extreme to lead a swing state.

Robinson's campaign faltered in September when CNN reported that he had posted explicitly racist and sexual posts on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago. In addition to the “Black Nazi” comment, Robinson said he enjoyed transgender pornography and called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “worse than a maggot,” the report said. Robinson denied writing the messages and sued CNN and one person for defamation in October.

In the days following the report, most of Robinson Top campaign staffers have quitmany GOP elected colleagues and candidates – including presidential candidates Donald Trump – distanced themselves from his campaign and the outside money supporting him over the airwaves dried up. The result: Stein spent millions on advertising in recent weeks, while Robinson spent nothing.

According to AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of more than 3,600 voters in the state, Stein had a clear advantage among women, young and older voters, moderates, and urban and suburban voters. White voters were roughly evenly split between Stein and Robinson, while a clear majority of black voters and Latino voters supported Stein. About two-thirds of college graduates supported Stein, while voters without a college degree were more divided.

Fifteen percent of those who voted for Trump supported Stein for governor, while only two percent of those who voted for Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris supported Robinson.

Patrick Stemple, 33, a shipping coordinator who attended a Trump rally in Greensboro last week, said he voted for Trump early but also chose Stein for governor.

Stemple mentioned both of Stein's ads in which he talked about how he fought the illegal drug trade and that he doesn't like Robinson's rhetoric. Stemple said the graphic language CNN said was used in Robinson's posts reinforced his decision not to support Robinson.

“I used to like him. But then when I started seeing and hearing about it and saw him talking about it on TV, I thought, 'Too much,'” Stemple said.

The 58-year-old Stein grew up in Chapel Hill, the son of a prominent civil rights attorney, and attended Dartmouth and Harvard Law School. He ran John Edwards' victorious 1998 U.S. Senate campaign and worked as Cooper's consumer protection chief in the 2000s while Cooper was attorney general.

Stein succeeded Cooper as attorney general, but his victories in the 2016 and 2020 general elections were extremely narrow: fewer than 25,000 votes both times.

As attorney general, he furthered his efforts to protect citizens from polluters, predatory student loans and high electric bills.

Stein praised lawmakers for clearing the backlog of testing thousands of sexual assault kits in police custody, saying it has led to additional DNA matches for unsolved crimes. He also sued TikTok, saying the company designed the app to be addictive and misrepresented the risks it posed to young users.

Stein angered Republicans with his decision to drop the state's defense of a 2013 voter ID law that was repealed and some abortion restrictions.

And while he co-chaired a task force in 2020 that made numerous recommendations to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system, liberal activists complained the following year that his office wasn't doing enough to protect civil rights.

Robinson campaigned primarily on boosting the rural economy, supporting law enforcement and teachers, and replacing what he called political indoctrination in public schools with basic education.

Even among Robinson voters, the majority of whom said they had a favorable opinion of him, only about four in 10 said they had a very favorable opinion of the Republican, according to VoteCast. By comparison, about three-quarters of Robinson voters said they had a very positive opinion of Trump.

Independent voter Joe O'Neill, 58, of Wingate, said he preferred Robinson because “he's actually more for people like me, the working class.” He called TV ads against Robinson a “false portrayal” and dismissed the CNN report back.

“I don't believe it at all,” said O'Neill, who works for a textile equipment manufacturer. “To me he seemed like a man who kept his word.”