First move: North Carolina prepares for gubernatorial race that could reflect a potential conflict between Trump and Biden

CNN
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A corner of the Republican Party: right-wing demagogues with a loyal following that rivals their partisan rivals in disgust.

For Democrats: Moderates with a diverse coalition of supporters committed to preserving democracy and what remains of the nation’s abortion protections.

The race to become North Carolina’s next governor is likely to mirror the choices voters will face on their presidential ticket in November. Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein are the front-runners in their respective Super Tuesday primaries, along with former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, who hold fall voting. There is.

North Carolina is shaping up to be a key battleground again in 2024. Mr. Biden and Democrats are aiming to take control of Raleigh by taking over the torch from the term-limited governor, while reversing the state that Mr. Trump narrowly won in 2020. . Roy Cooper to Stein. Mr. Stein is seen by many as a rising star and the party’s last hope to slow, if not stop, the state Republican march.

Few American voters are as narrowly divided as the Tar Heel State. The state’s Republican legislative supermajority, secured not by voters but by the dramatic defection of turncoats to Republicans last year, has been at constant odds with Mr. Cooper over a variety of issues, including: New 12-week abortion ban on state taxes and regulations.

Not much drama is expected on Tuesday, when both parties head to the polls for their primaries. Mr. Stein is the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, while Mr. Biden is expected to win the delegates in a landslide without the drama of Michigan. On the Republican side, Mr. Trump is once again expected to win his third straight presidential primary in the state, and Mr. Robinson is polling ahead of the two Republican gubernatorial candidates.

President Trump endorsed Robinson during a rally in Greensboro on Saturday, calling the lieutenant governor, who is Black, “Martin Luther King on steroids” and a “great, natural speaker.” In his statement, Robinson sought to link Stein and Biden, mocking the “Democratic Biden-Stein agenda” and declaring, “We need more bold warriors like President Donald Trump.” did.

Anderson Clayton, chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, suggested similar ties between Robinson and top Republicans.

“It’s no wonder that a lieutenant governor who calls for a blanket ban on abortion, without exception, would be supported by Donald Trump, who brags about appointing judges who overturned Roe v. Wade,” Creighton said in a statement. (Robinson has voiced his opposition to abortion universally, but said his office supports legislation that would ban abortions after a “heartbeat” is detected.) (Exceptions are made for incest and the life of the mother.)

But what comes next could be the most competitive race in the country, with clear differences between the candidates. Robinson, 55, is a darling of the Republican MAGA faction and a fixture in conservative media circles. He brings a reputation for controversial and often bigoted statements to the campaign, along with heavy criticism from the news media.

“The left is wrong. They’re wrong on every topic, on every issue,” Robinson said at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month. “They have nothing to fall back on because they are not doing anything right.”

Robinson said the media is ignoring the failings of Democratic state leaders and instead focusing on the positions he and Trump have taken on divisive political issues.

“Whenever they mention my name, they associate it with social issues and how I hate everyone,” Robinson said. “They say I hate everyone. I hate people who walk and talk and walk upright. I hate people who drive cars. I hate no one.”

Robinson is a vocal supporter of the gun rights expansion that launched her political career, and is also a vocal opponent of abortion. At the 2021 March for Life event in Raleigh, shortly after conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court, she compared abortion to slavery.

“We are condoning the murder of some of the most innocent humans on the planet, and we are doing it with impunity,” Robinson said. “If we do not wipe abortion from our shores in the cause of life, just as we wiped out slavery in the cause of freedom, this country will not survive.”

When it was revealed in 1989 that Robinson had paid for his girlfriend’s (and now wife’s) abortion, he said, “Because of this experience and our spiritual journey, we are determined to remain professional.” “I’m against Life.”

Other comments have been more harsh, even calling for his resignation. A June 2021 video in which Robinson described “transgenderism” and “homosexuality” as “filth” went viral months later, with Democrats from statehouses to the White House condemning him.

In the face of these reprimands, the lieutenant governor became even more resolute.

“I’m not ashamed of the language I used,” he told Raleigh TV station WRAL that fall. “It’s time for parents in this state to take a strong stand for their children, and we will continue to take advantage of this system.”

More recently, old social media posts in which Robinson downplayed the atrocities of Nazi Germany and argued that socialism was a bigger and more timely threat drew further criticism.

“We talk a lot about the ‘appeasement’ of Hitler. But the greatest ‘appeasement’ in history is how we turned a blind eye to the clear and present dangers of Marxism.” Robinson wrote in 2019.

In the opinion of various political operatives and observers in North Carolina, Mr. Robinson’s inflammatory rhetoric, coupled with his conservative social policy agenda, would be a nuisance for the Democratic Party if he were to become the Republican nominee. It is said to be a perfect opportunity to take control of the governor’s official residence.

Cooper recently told CNN that Robinson’s personality would threaten the state’s growing economy.

“He’s a culture warrior. I think North Carolinians have made it pretty clear that they don’t want a culture warrior in the governor’s office,” Cooper said. “I think we have a great candidate in Josh Stein, but we have a candidate in[Robinson]that will be a disaster for the state of North Carolina,” he said, appealing to industry with a business-friendly tax policy.

Mr. Stein, 57, followed Mr. Cooper into the state attorney general’s office after Mr. Cooper won the governor’s mansion in 2016. Cooper had done the same thing several years earlier, when he succeeded newly elected Democratic Gov. Mike Easley as attorney general in 2001.

Since taking office in 2017, weeks before Trump took office, Stein has been an active member of an informal coalition of Democratic attorneys general across the country seeking to block conservative forces on the court. Ta.

In late January, he and colleagues from more than 20 other states filed a brief with the Supreme Court challenging a federal appeals court ruling that threatened access to abortion pills.

“Women should not have to worry about getting the medicine they need,” Stein said in a statement. “I will continue to do everything I can for women’s reproductive freedom.”

He took similar action in 2018 when the Affordable Care Act received high court scrutiny, made headlines a year later by suing e-cigarette maker Juul, and in 2023, he made headlines for suing e-cigarette maker Juul. She became one of the most vocal critics of anti-abortion laws. Republican supermajority in the state legislature.

Since running for office in January 2023, Mr. Stein has been preparing for a general election showdown with Mr. Robinson, who featured prominently in his campaign kickoff video.

“Robinson wants to tell us who you can marry, when you can get pregnant, who you can hate,” Stein says in the video, which shows a series of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia. He said this immediately after the video. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. A reel of Robinson’s most divisive statements. “I believe that the fights we choose show who we are and determine what state we become.”

Earlier this month, just days before North Carolina went to the polls for its primary election, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Durham with Cooper, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo and others for her second visit to the state in 2024. was. The city’s historic “Black Wall Street” district.

Harris, a longtime ally of Cooper, said it was her 10th visit to the state since becoming vice president and touted spending by the Biden administration to boost small businesses in the state.

And she wasn’t the only big-time player to arrive in North Carolina ahead of Super Tuesday. Trump stopped in Greensboro on Saturday, while his last remaining strong rival in the primary, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, visited Charlotte on Friday and Raleigh on Saturday.