RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina's next attorney general will represent the Charlotte area on Capitol Hill and will be one of two retiring members who previously served in the state Legislature.
Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson and Republican Rep. Dan Bishop are both lawyers and prolific fundraisers. Each claims his rival is too radical to be sworn in as the state’s top law enforcement official on Nov. 5.
The winner will replace two-term Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Despite decades of strong Republican performance in other statewide elections, Democrats have dominated the position, and a Republican has not been elected attorney general since 1896. In both 2016 and 2020, Mr. Stein won by less than 25,000 votes over his Republican opponent.
This fall’s campaign has focused primarily on who can best represent the nation’s ninth largest state in court and keep communities safe. Although North Carolina’s violent crime rate was higher in 2023 than it was a decade ago, it was essentially flat compared to 2022, according to statistics from the State Bureau of Investigation.
Both candidates and their allied PACs planned to spend at least $31 million combined on TV and online advertising during the general election period, according to data from AdImpact, which monitors campaign spending. The North Carolina race is one of the most closely watched of the 10 attorney general elections taking place across the country next month.
The attorney general is charged with representing the state in court and defending the work of locally elected district attorneys in appeals of criminal cases. The AG also makes legislative recommendations to the General Assembly and has in the past sued certain industries for damages, including tobacco, pharmaceutical and social media companies.
Two members of the U.S. Congress are seeking state government positions, reflecting the growing influence of those positions and going to court to support or oppose federal policies. This reflects the increasingly partisan role played by state attorneys general in
Jackson, an Afghanistan war veteran and National Guard lawyer with a huge following on social media, was elected to Congress in 2022. He talked about his experience as a prosecutor. As an assistant district attorney in Gaston County, he handled a wide variety of cases. His dedication to litigation and nonpartisan service make him the most qualified candidate.
“The job is basically to be a shield to protect people from people who would try to hurt them,” Jackson said in a recent interview. “I’ve spent my entire career doing this work, as a military officer and as a prosecutor. That’s why I want to be attorney general.”
Bishop, a longtime commercial litigator, former Mecklenburg County commissioner and state representative, joined Congress in 2019 and is a strong supporter of Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump.
Mr. Bishop downplayed Mr. Jackson’s legal career as an assistant prosecutor, emphasizing that he calculated that he himself had appeared in state and federal court more than 400 times.
“I have had extensive and complex experience with North Carolina’s judicial system,” Bishop said in an interview. “He didn’t have that kind of career.”
If elected, Jackson said he would work to combat the fentanyl overdose epidemic and fight fraudsters who are using artificial intelligence technology to defraud consumers.
Bishop accused Jackson of having an “extensive history of being tolerant of crime and hostile to police.” He said North Carolina needs “to restore law and order” and will work to involve liberal-leaning district attorneys who are not doing so.
The position is a springboard for a run for governor — outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper served as attorney general for 16 years. In recent years, Mr. Cooper and Mr. Stein have stopped defending state laws that Republicans have deemed unconstitutional.
Jackson said in a recent interview that Stein was right to refuse to defend state law that limits medication abortions and mandates what doctors must do before prescribing abortion pills. .
But Bishop argued that Mr. Stein’s motive for not adhering to state laws enacted by the Republican-led General Assembly was to advance his political career, and that Mr. Jackson would do the same if elected.
Jackson and Bishop serve together in the state Legislature, with Bishop barring cities from enacting new anti-discrimination ordinances and requiring transgender people to use public restrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate. He led the enactment of the 2016 law.
Mr. Jackson did not seek re-election to Congress this fall after Congress rewrote the congressional map to place him in a Republican-heavy district.
Mr. Jackson and his supporters also said Mr. Bishop had criticized Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, especially after a CNN report that Mr. Robinson had made explicitly racially and sexually explicit posts on a message board on a porn site. He also points out that he supports him as a gubernatorial candidate. Mr. Robinson denies the charges.
When asked if he would be comfortable supporting Robinson going forward, Bishop focused on winning the attorney general race, saying, “Any issues related to the gubernatorial race will be resolved between Mark and the voters.” ” he said. But Mr Jackson said it was “ridiculous” that Mr Bishop “couldn’t say a single critical word” about Mr Robinson.
Earlier this month, Bishop filed a defamation lawsuit against the Jackson campaign and others, claiming that at least some of the Jackson campaign argued that voters would be more likely to vote for Bishop if he “represented people who stole.” He claimed that he was responsible for the political investigation that asked whether there was more or less. Money received from the elderly. ” Bishop says he has never represented such people. Mr. Jackson’s campaign has indicated that the lawsuit will fail.
