Why I’m bullish on Josh Stein

The 2024 governor’s race has taken place under a subtext of terror. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee, is the most controversial and extreme politician ever to be nominated by a major party in North Carolina. If he wins, his radicalism threatens to wreck the state. Democratic nominee Josh Stein bears an accordingly heavy burden to prevent the disaster of a Robinson administration.

Apprehension about the Robinson threat began to spread years before the Large Fellow from Greensboro announced his candidacy for governor. New York Times columnist Frank Bruni — a Chapel Hill resident — declared to his largely northeastern readership that, in the context of the extreme Robinson, “You Care” about North Carolina’s gubernatorial race.

Robinson has become nationally prominent, notorious in most parts of the country but wildly popular among far-right Trumpists, for his vicious flamboyance and hearty embrace of anti-Semitic tropes. Adding to many people’s nervous assessment of this race, Josh Stein’s two statewide victories were narrow and precarious. He won last time by 12,000 votes.

The race is well afoot, and I’m optimistic. The reason is because Josh Stein and his allies have run a deft campaign, the ignorant Robinson has proven hapless and the national political environment seems to be congealing on favorable terms to the Democrats.

The Robinson menace continues to loom, ogre-like, over the mountain peaks and beachy coastline of our state. But I find myself more and more optimistic that Robinson will be given the rebuke he has richly earned and that our state will elect Josh Stein as governor.

So far, Stein’s campaign has been almost flawless. Rebuking Democrats who thought he was too liberal, too suburban or too otherwise Other to win over a Southern state, Josh Stein has established a positive public image. Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen told NC Newsline that PPP’s polling found Stein with a 25-point-greater approval rating than Robinson.

Popular himself, Stein has made headway on the important task of annihilating Robinson’s attempt to erect a sunny and moderate façade. The political ads Stein has run have been devastating — turning Robinson’s passion and hate back on the bigot himself. Like Barack Obama in 2012, Stein has “defined his opponent early” and set the terms of the race on advantageous ground.

Furthermore, the attacks that have borne such rich fruit are merely the first offerings Robinson has delivered to his opponent’s opposition researchers. Stein has focused on abortion and Robinson’s misogyny. He’s landed heavy blows, but some of Robinson’s most serious vulnerabilities have remained largely undiscussed.

The most perilous subject for Robinson is his and his wife’s scofflaw business, Balanced Nutrition. It allegedly fleeced the state Department of Health and Human services of more than $130,000 by promising to provide lunches to day care centers that didn’t ask for them. If true, this would be clear commission of fraud, and it stands as Robinson’s single greatest political vulnerability. When Balanced Nutrition was dominating the headlines last spring, the controversy propelled Robinson’s opponent to an eight-point lead.

Stein’s most challenging headwind up until now was the presidential race. Biden had completely collapsed in North Carolina and was likely to lose the state by up to 10 points. That dynamic has now turned in a dramatically different direction.

With Kamala Harris, a charismatic, forceful Black woman, having taken over from the senescent Biden, Democratic voters are excited and motivated to vote at high levels. She will do much better than Biden among African Americans and young voters. And the concerns over older white voters that prevail in the Midwest are irrelevant here. Biden was doing so poorly among white swing voters that the Democratic presidential ticket likely has literally nothing left to lose from that demographic.

The Democrats are stronger in North Carolina than they’ve been since 2008, and Josh Stein, the torch-carrier tasked with saving the state, is poised to defeat a demagogue who never deserved to rise from obscurity.

Alexander H. Jones is a policy analyst with Carolina Forward. He lives in Carrboro. Have feedback? Reach him at alex@carolinaforward.org .

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