Steady ascent or sudden splash? North Carolina governor’s race features men who took different paths

ROXBORO, N.C. (AP) — One candidate is an Ivy League-educated attorney who over 25 years amassed allies as he climbed North Carolina’s Democratic ladder. The other is a former furniture factory worker with a history of blunt commentary who plowed into Republican politics four years ago after a viral video on gun rights vaulted him to prominence.

While taking dramatically different paths, Attorney General Josh Stein and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson have emerged as front-runners for their parties’ nominations for governor next month in the race to succeed term-limited Democrat Roy Cooper in the nation’s ninth-largest state.

Each faces credible rivals, including two Republicans seeking to defeat Robinson using their own personal wealth to convince GOP voters that he’s too controversial to lead the state. But Robinson and Stein have led their fields in fundraising and won potentially pivotal support from Donald Trump and Cooper for their respective candidacies.

As early in-person voting for the March 5 primaries began Thursday, national party groups were already gearing up for an expensive and heated general election campaign, regardless of who advances.

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