By Theresa Opeka
Carolina Journal
In unofficial results from Tuesday’s general election, Democrat North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein has won the race for North Carolina’s next governor with 54.8% (3,036,034) of the vote, easily beating his Republican opponent Mark Robinson with 40.1% (2,224,955), a 15-point difference. He replaces outgoing Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper, who has held the office since January 2017.
But North Carolina will not have a split ticket for the lieutenant governor for the first time since 2008. Democrat State Sen. Rachel Hunt appears to have pulled out a win over her Republican challenger, Hal Weatherman, who won with 49.4% of the vote compared to Weatherman’s 47.8%.
Results are unofficial until after the North Carolina State Board of Election completes the canvass process 10 days after the election.
Walter Dalton was the last Democrat to hold that position under former Democrat Gov. Bev Purdue.
Stein told his supporters that he ran for governor because he believes in the promise of North Carolina and that where you come from should never limit how far you can go.
“We must invest in our people and their futures so that together we build a safer, stronger North Carolina where the economy continues to grow and works for everyone,” he said. “Where our public schools are excellent, and our teachers are well-paid and where our neighborhoods are safe, and women can make their own decisions about their own bodies.”
Stein beat his lone primary opponent, former NC Supreme Court Justice Mike Morgan, in the March primary. Robinson won the Republican primary against State Treasurer Dale Folwell, and attorney and businessman Bill Graham.
In his concession speech, Robinson told his supporters that despite the results not being what they wanted and being disappointing for them and the grassroots volunteers, they could all hold their heads high.
“Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in attack ads against us, we ran a clean and hard-fought race focused on a better future for North Carolina,” he said.
Robinson added that he looks forward to finishing his term as lieutenant governor and will keep working to improve education and career training, as well as to deliver more relief to those affected by Hurricane Helene in the western part of the state.
He also thanked the people who put him in office for the honor of serving as lieutenant governor.
“Thank you to the people of North Carolina. I never imagined that a former factory worker who grew up poor in Greensboro could go on to serve as the first black lieutenant governor of North Carolina – a role that is the honor of a lifetime.”
Stein, who has been attorney general since January 2017, had already been leading in the polls before CNN broke news in September that Robinson, who was elected as lieutenant governor in November 2020, allegedly made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and expressed support for reinstating slavery, a CNN KFile investigation found.
After the story broke, polling for Robinson proved disastrous. Carolina Journal’s last poll had Stein at 43.4% and Robinson at 28.9%.
Robinson vowed to stay in the race, dismissed the story, and compared himself to US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, saying he was the victim of a “high-tech lynching.”
Soon after, many of his campaign staff quit, and senior members of the lieutenant governor’s government staff resigned.
In October, Robinson filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against CNN, but weeks later had to reduce it to in excess of $25,000. The amended filing most likely stems from defendant Louis Love Money’s motion to dismiss the case. The $25,000 threshold is required for cases to be heard in Superior Court. Money filed the motion on Oct. 16 to dismiss Robinson’s complaints against him.
A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 18 in Robinson’s defamation lawsuit.
Robinson is also being sued by Vox Insights LLC, for allegedly failing to pay a $114,000 bill. Vox provides polling data and related political information to political candidate committees and candidates for public office.
Robinson also couldn’t catch a break when it came to campaign finance. According to the latest report, the Stein campaign took in more than $77.5 million and spent $76.6 million, while the Robinson Campaign took in more than $19.8 million and spent $19.2 million.
Ending the state’s decades-long backlog of untested rape kits was among the accomplishments that Stein had run on. In April, it was reported that 11,841 kits had been tested, leading to DNA matches and more than 100 arrests.
The backlog had been a problem for the state, building up while Cooper served as the state’s attorney general for 16 years. According to the advocacy group End the Backlog, which works on legislative reform and victims’ rights, North Carolina had one of the worst backlogs in the nation.
Hunt said in a post on X that she and her supporters made history by “taking back the Lieutenant Governor’s office after 12 long years of extreme Republican control!”
Hunt, daughter of former Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt, faced controversy for pulling out of the only debate between her and Weatherman scheduled for Sept. 17 and from Weatherman at his runoff victory speech in May. He said she would solely be focused on abortion, much like the rest of the Democrat party nationally, at a time when people were worried about more pressing issues.
“I’ve been on the road for 16 straight months, and those are not the issues that the people are worried about,” he stated. “Not at all. They’re worried about how they’re going to pay for groceries, how they’re going to afford gasoline, and about the crime rate that’s soaring all over the state. They’re worried about fentanyl coming into their community because our southern border has been completely left negligent. They’re worried about all of these things and so much more.”
Robinson also called out Hunt for an ad that he said was racist towards him and demanded she apologize. The ad shows Hunt, who is running for lieutenant governor against Republican Hal Weatherman, shows her talking about Weatherman but, at the end saying, “And since I am moving into Mark Robinson’s office, I will start with a gallon of this,” holding up a jug of hydrogen peroxide.
However, despite being in line with former President and President-elect Donald Trump’s platform, it wasn’t enough for Weatherman to beat Hunt.
He served as campaign manager and chief of staff for former Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest and former US Rep. Sue Myrick and told Carolina Journal in March that he had been the only candidate out of 11 candidates for lieutenant governor in the original primary who traveled all 100 counties of the state.
“We also went to thirty-five counties five times or more, then we went to ten counties ten times or more, and then we stopped counting,” he told CJ in a video interview. “I really think people out there are looking for authenticity. They’re looking for genuineness and you really can’t show that over a TV screen or over a computer screen. You have to be face-to-face with people.”
Theresa Opeka is the Executive Branch reporter for the Carolina Journal.
