Robinson and Stein will face off in North Carolina governor’s race, CNN projects

CNN —

The gubernatorial showdown in North Carolina is set for what is expected to be one of the most competitive races of the year, after Democrats chose moderate, strait-laced state Attorney General Josh Stein to square off with Republican nominee Mark Robinson, a right-wing firebrand currently serving as lieutenant governor.

Stein and Robinson are vying to replace term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper, as Democrats try to protect one of their last-remaining footholds in the upper echelons of Southern politics – and attempt to flip the state in what’s also expected to be a hotly contested presidential ballot.

Former President Donald Trump won the Tarheel State in 2016 and 2020, but Biden came within a little more than one percentage point of an upset. Biden’s favorability might have dropped since then, but Republicans could face a harsher backlash in November over their party-line vote to override Cooper’s veto of a 12-week abortion ban, which was passed last year by a GOP legislative supermajority.

Despite their total control of the state legislature, Republicans have been locked out of the governor’s office since Cooper was elected to the first of two terms in 2016, on the same day Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president. Robinson, though exciting for the MAGA base, cuts a similar political figure to Trump, as a bombastic supporter of gun rights and abortion bans, along with a penchant for dabbling in antisemitic, misogynist and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

“Whenever they mention my name, they always mention my name in conjunction with social issues and how I hate everybody,” Robinson said at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month. “According to them, I hate everybody. I hate people who