What you should know about North Carolina’s race for governor

North Carolina has been an underappreciated political battleground recently and not gotten the same attention as nearby Georgia or Florida or the traditional campaign hotbeds of the Rust Belt.

That is changing in 2024, partly because of a potentially historic governor’s race that pits North Carolina’s centrist tendencies against the rise of populist conservatism in the era of Donald Trump.

The Republican nominee is Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a 55-year-old who would be the state’s first Black governor. Democrats have chosen Attorney General Josh Stein, a 57-year-old who is trying to keep the office in his party’s control after two terms under outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper.

Here are some key dynamics and questions in the contest.

REPUBLICANS WANT NORTH CAROLINIANS TO SHIFT RIGHT

Since 1992, Democrats have won seven out of the eight governor’s races in North Carolina, a run that Democrats attribute to nominating center-left candidates who prioritize public education together with economic development. The lone Republican governor in that span was Pat McCrory, the former Charlotte mayor who pitched himself to voters as a business-friendly conservative rooted in the pragmatic, problem-solving politics of City Hall.

Robinson does not fit either profile. He once called abortion “child sacrifice.” In various church pulpits, he has asserted men as the rightful leaders in church and society. He once mused that leaders of the original birth control movement in the U.S. were “witches, all of ‘em.” He has discussed LGBTQ people with words like “filth” and “maggots” and said transgender women should never use women’s restrooms: “Find a corner outside somewhere to go.”