North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D) launched a 2024 bid for governor Wednesday with an announcement video that draws parallels between the 1971 firebombing of the office of his father, a civil rights lawyer, in Charlotte, and two more recent events: the 2017 white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Stein refers to participants in the latter two events as “a different set of bomb throwers who threaten our freedoms and our future.”
Stein, a former state legislator who has served as attorney general since 2017, is seeking to succeed term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper (D).
In his video, Stein shows images from the firebombing of his father’s law office. Adam Stein and two leaders in the civil rights movement, Julius Chambers and James Ferguson, were battling to end segregation in public schools. The video segues to scenes of white nationalists with tiki torches marching in Charlottesville and the pro-Trump mob storming the U.S. Capitol.
I’m in! I’m running for Governor to fight for our future. As your AG, I have taken on big fights for you and won, time after time. That’s what I’ll do as your next Governor. Together, we can build a better and brighter North Carolina. pic.twitter.com/4l3HCzecMJ
— Josh Stein (@JoshStein_) January 18, 2023
The video quickly contrasts Josh Stein with North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R), who was elected separately from Cooper and is a likely GOP gubernatorial contender in 2024. Robinson has made headlines for repeated antisemitic and anti-gay comments as well as remarks suggesting women are inferior to men. Images of Robinson appear as Stein decries politicians who “spark division, ignite hate and fan the flames of bigotry.”
“Some politicians want to tell you who you should hate, when you’ll be pregnant, and who you can marry,” Stein says in the video. “I believe in a different North Carolina — and that the fights we choose determine what kind of state we’ll become.”
After the Supreme Court struck down abortion rights last year, Republican leaders in North Carolina pressed Stein to ask a federal court to lift an injunction on a state law banning nearly all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. He declined.
“North Carolina is one of the last states in the South where women can access a safe and lawful abortion,” Stein had said in a separate statement. “Any woman from an anti-choice state who travels to another state is not a criminal; she is accessing health care. I will do everything in my power to preserve women’s freedoms.”
Democrats have held the governorship in the state since Cooper unseated Pat McCrory (R) in 2016, but Republicans hold the two U.S. Senate seats, with Sen. Ted Budd’s win in November. A Democrat hasn’t won a majority of the state’s votes for president since Barack Obama in 2008.