Written by Stephen Halley
On January 25th, Democrat candidate for North Carolina governor, Josh Stein, launched a new group called ‘Students for Stein.’ The group holds a singular purpose, to support Josh Stein as candidate for governor, with a main focus on recruiting college students to hopefully grow Stein’s razor thin margins over his Republican challenger. Stein himself did grace the meager audience with his presence and gave a speech making his case for governor.
Stein’s campaign consists of two ideas: he represents the values of North Carolinians and everything that goes wrong isn’t his fault. His bid for governor relies on these ideas, and they are the single product Stein is selling to the people of North Carolina.
The problem for Stein has been one of generating enough support to win a general election, and without a grassroots base to support him, it is a battle he is fighting hard and losing. Based on a December PPP poll, he leads his primary with over 50% of Democrat support. In a general election, however, he is currently losing by 4 points to Mark Robinson, the presumptive Republican nominee, according to a poll by the ECU Center for Survey Research. While it may seem that this is still a very close race in the general election, Stein’s previous victories make this a cold comfort. During the 2020 election for attorney general, Stein managed to win by only 0.1% over his Republican opponent, despite a drop in support between 2016 and 2020. Stein’s falling support in recent years combined with the state’s growing support for his presumptive opponent means that he has had to change up his strategy in this upcoming election.
This change in strategy could be plainly seen in Stein’s visit to UNC. Borrowing a playbook from Roy Cooper, his entire speech was about just how much Stein represents North Carolina values and how he has deep roots in the state making him an ideal choice for governor. The problem is: that’s hardly the truth. Stein was born and raised in Chapel Hill, the state’s most notoriously liberal city and one that certainly does not represent the ideals of most North Carolinians. Unlike nine of the previous ten governors of North Carolina, Stein did not attend college here but instead went to Harvard and Dartmouth, Ivy League institutions with no connection to the state he claims to represent.
And it seems that Stein has carried much of those liberal ideals back to North Carolina. Before his time as attorney general, Stein served four terms in the North Carolina senate where he earned one of the most liberal voting records in state history. He repeatedly voted against tax cuts, charter schools, voter ID, and Second Amendment rights and in favor of taxpayer funded abortion up to the point of birth.
As attorney general, his liberal record doesn’t get any better. Stein repeatedly used a supposedly non-partisan office, whose sole role is to enforce North Carolina law, to defend liberal projects and interests. Following the Dobbs decision, Stein refused to enforce North Carolina’s 20-week abortion restriction, which came into effect with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Before this, Stein flagrantly disregarded the rule of law by refusing to defend a law that would allow convicted felons to vote in NC elections before they have finished serving their sentences. Between 2018 and 2022, Stein has repeatedly undermined the election laws in the state by refusing to defend the 2018 voter ID constitutional provision and colluding with liberal activists to change North Carolina election laws in 2020.
It’s safe to say that Josh Stein’s political record has been one of his personal liberal interests and values and not the values of the people of North Carolina.
A good part of Stein’s speech was devoted to his actions as attorney general, making special notice of his continued fight against sexual assault cold cases in North Carolina. There are, in this state, “thousands upon thousand upon thousands of untested rape kits, just sitting on the shelves of local law enforcement,” Stein stated, later taking great pride in his office’s ability to get those kits tested and putting the rapists behind bars, “making our communities safer.”
Stein postures himself on getting these kits tested and finding closure for the victims, something that has been a great win for his office and is the legacy he wants to leave behind. The issue for this legacy is that attorney generals have no jurisdiction over untested rape kits; that privilege falls to local law enforcement alone. Even stranger is a lawsuit filed by Josh Stein against his 2020 opponent Jim O’Neill, alleging that O’Neill lied in blaming Stein for the thousands of untested rape kits in the state of North Carolina, violating a state law that makes it a crime to lie in order to influence an election.
So for attorney general Josh Stein, when rape kits continue to pile up after years of throwing money at the problem, it’s not his fault because he doesn’t have the jurisdiction. But once progress is made and the shelves start to clear up, suddenly he gets to take all the credit.
Even Stein’s claim that he wants to make our communities safer falls hollow. While he has made great strides to help with the problem of unsolved sexual assault cases, his silence during the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 speaks volumes about what kinds of crimes he wants to prosecute. Instead of focusing on prosecuting the rioters who caused over $10 million dollars worth of damage, he instead wanted to make North Carolina, “a leader in identifying and overcoming the systemic racism in our criminal justice system.” According to the Department of Justice website, this meant taking actions that would impose fines and fees as opposed to jail time and allowing more court issued pre-trial releases. In other words, Josh Stein wants our justice system to look like those of Portland, San Francisco, or New York City.
Stein’s rally in the pit at UNC Chapel Hill and the launching of Students for Stein, was an attempt to lock in a base of support that he already has. Young liberals, the primary voting group represented at this school, are the only ones progressive enough to support the kinds of policies he spoke about. At his rally, he calls for ending abortion restrictions in the state of North Carolina, raising the minimum wage, expansion of Medicaid, “common sense” gun safety reforms, among other far left policies.
And of those on the right, Stein sowed only contempt and anger. He said that the state was under attack by right wing politicians who are, “taking a sledgehammer to its foundation,” and who, “damage our democracy and cling to power.” Bold words for someone who is running to be the leader of a state home to over 2 million registered Republicans and whose house and senate are majority Republican.
Josh Stein is certainly not the representative of North Carolinian values that he claims to be. He expresses only far left ideals and hasn’t a clue about what the state really wants. All of the promises he campaigns on would necessarily need to be passed by executive action given that North Carolina’s legislature has a Republican majority in both the house and senate. And if this legislature is a good representation of the state’s ideals, Josh Stein just doesn’t line up. All the while, Stein maintains the view that conservatives and Republicans are vicious and power hungry, wanting nothing more than to destroy the state of North Carolina. He is not a man of this state, he does not represent this state, and he does not deserve to be its governor.
Students for Stein perfectly epitomizes his problem. It is a group comprised of a small minority of North Carolina voters who also do not represent the majority of North Carolinians. In fact, students are exactly the kind of people who would support Stein, that’s why they were chosen. Even the rally, small as it was, was a place of conformity and nothing more. Identical signs were handed to just about everyone who was around; they even tried to give me one. Eventually, Stein showed up, late to his own rally and seemingly without a care in the world about it. The crowd clapped along to every canned and tested saying Stein made in his short, 15-minute speech. Everyone lined up for a picture, and it was over. These are the people Stein represents—not the majority of the state but a small group of young liberals, hell bent on making the state just like every other liberal paradise in the country.