North Carolina’s attorney general race could be the most interesting in the country | Opinion
Democratic congressman Jeff Jackson confirmed some longstanding rumors Thursday when he announced his campaign for North Carolina attorney general in 2024. He’ll likely face off against Republican Dan Bishop, a fellow member of the state’s congressional delegation.
Rumors of a Jackson-Bishop matchup began circling even before either announced they were running. Bishop officially launched his campaign in August, but Jackson didn’t announce until new maps drawn by Republican state legislators effectively drew him out of his congressional seat. The two are already considered the likely front-runners in the race.
It could very well be the most interesting attorney general race in the country — and one that might say a lot about where North Carolina is and is headed politically. It will be a clash between two very different politicians who represent very different types of politics, and not just because of their party affiliations.
Both Bishop and Jackson are rising stars within their parties. Serving in Washington has only elevated Jackson’s political profile, and his use of TikTok to shed light on Capitol Hill happenings has drawn praise from voters and criticism from Republican colleagues. Bishop has spent some time in the spotlight since Republicans regained the U.S. House majority, nearly forcing a debt ceiling default and a government shutdown. He’s successfully tapped into something that has worked for Republicans — anger and divisiveness directed at perceived political enemies.
Yet Jackson is a reminder that voters once preferred candidates who talked about and amplified character and principles. He looks for ways to find common ground, using logic and humor to appeal to voters instead of sowing division. Bishop, on the other hand, is a reminder of just how rare that old-school brand of politics has become. While Bishop has never been one for political correctness, he has leaned hard into a different kind of campaign strategy employed by many Republicans. That means being combative and demeaning to appeal to baser instincts in voters — a strategy characterized in a Bishop ad from 2019 that depicted Democratic politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as inflatable clowns.
That same tension is present across the country — between Biden and Trump, between democracy defenders and election deniers in states like Pennsylvania and Arizona. It’s present elsewhere in North Carolina, too, between traditionally successful politicians like Josh Stein and newly successful bomb throwers like Mark Robinson.
“Jackson vs. Bishop would really distill North Carolina politics perfectly. It’s a purple state. But that doesn’t mean that we get purple politicians,” Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper said. “It means we get very blue and very red, which averages to purple. And I think that’s exactly what that race would represent.”
What might happen in a race like this? Before he was elected to Congress, Jackson ran for North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2022. He exited the race months before the primary to make way for the eventual Democratic nominee, Cheri Beasley, who was leading in the polls. At the time, Jackson said the only path forward would have been to run a negative campaign against Beasley, which was something he didn’t want to do.
Of course, much of that was a desire to not cause undue damage to whoever would become the Democratic nominee. But personal attacks have never been Jackson’s comfort zone, so it would be interesting to see how he chooses to campaign against an opponent whose brand is rooted in negativity — and who manufactures exactly the kind of faux outrage that Jackson has been critical of in the past. At the same time, Bishop may find that incendiary right-wing rhetoric is not an effective statewide strategy in North Carolina and shift his campaign accordingly.
Buckle up. If Bishop and Jackson both win their respective primaries, this race will be one of the marquee contests of the 2024 cycle. Much like the governor’s race, it could offer a telling glimpse of how purple North Carolina remains, and what kind of politics carry appeal here.
This story was originally published October 29, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
