Endorsement: The Editorial Board’s choice for North Carolina governor

We hear the phrase “the most important election of our lifetime” so often that it’s practically lost all meaning. But for North Carolina, this one really might be.

On Election Day, North Carolinians will have a critical choice to make between two men who want to be the next governor of our state. It’s a choice that can be framed in very stark terms: integrity and immorality, decency and demagoguery. It should be an easy one to make.

Democrat Josh Stein and Republican Mark Robinson offer two competing visions for North Carolina’s future. Stein is a known quantity, someone who has served this state capably for eight years as attorney general and for years before that as a state senator. Robinson is a known quantity, too. As we said during the primaries, he is the most virulently extreme statewide candidate in memory.

Robinson did not agree to an interview with the Editorial Board despite multiple attempts to reach him during the primary and general elections. But since he vaulted to political stardom several years ago, everything we have learned about Robinson has been a lesson in why he cannot and should not be our next governor.

As lieutenant governor — a largely ceremonial role with few real responsibilities — Robinson has been a stain on our state and the party that allowed him to come into power. He finds himself in the national spotlight far too often for his vile rhetoric, using his bully pulpit to demean and discriminate against groups he doesn’t like. And what we do know about his past is not reassuring. Bankruptcies. Failing to pay taxes. Questionable business activity. Tinfoil hat conspiracy theories on social media and meticulous reporting on lewd, disturbing comments on a pornography website. He has been a disgrace and an embarrassment to North Carolina, one who has few qualifications for the office he is seeking to hold.

The outcome of this election will have consequences. The next governor not only can serve as a check on extreme legislation passed by the legislature. The office is also about more intangible things, including the way our state is represented on the national stage and the comforting presence of a leader in times of crisis. There’s little evidence we can trust that Robinson will be a good ambassador for North Carolina, let alone a steady leader in a tragedy.

North Carolinians should be assured that in voting for Stein, they are not merely voting against Robinson. The attorney general is well-equipped to be the next governor of North Carolina, and he possesses the temperament, qualifications and vision necessary to succeed in the role. As AG, he has been an advocate for North Carolinians on critical issues like voting rights and the opioid epidemic.

We’ve criticized Stein in the past for being too cautious at times, such as when his office didn’t proactively speak out or counsel against UNC’s ill-advised Silent Sam deal with the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Overall, though, Stein fights for what is right, even when it’s not easy — and he has shown himself to be a leader who lifts up the vulnerable instead of picking on them. Voters can be certain he would be a governor for all of North Carolina.

Stein would be a wise choice for governor in any election. But he is running in this election, against this opponent, and that matters.

North Carolina deserves better than Mark Robinson. Gay and transgender North Carolinians deserve better than a governor who calls them “filth” and says transgender people should urinate in the streets. Jewish North Carolinians deserve better than a governor who allegedly praises “Mein Kampf ”and declared himself a “Black Nazi” and who questions whether the Holocaust really happened. Female North Carolinians deserve a leader who does not want to rob them of their bodily autonomy, tell them to “keep their skirt down,” downplay sexual assault and domestic violence and say society is “called to be led by men.” Black North Carolinians deserve better than someone who believes Black people owe reparations, attacks the Civil Rights Movement and allegedly expresses support for reinstating slavery.

Electing Mark Robinson might not mean our state radically changes overnight. There is, after all, only so much power the governor can wield. But it matters who we elect to lead and represent our state. We recommend Josh Stein for governor.

This story was originally published October 15, 2024 at 12:12 PM.