North Carolina voters have chosen Jewish Democrat Josh Stein as their governor in what has offered a rare glimmer of hope amid an election marked by repeated victories for the Republican party.
Stein, who will be North Carolina’s first Jewish governor, defeated his opponent Mark Robinson by earning 54.8 per cent of the vote. Robinson’s campaign took a hit when, in September, CNN reported that he had posted racist, misogynistic, pro-Nazi and antisemitic comments on a pornographic website.
Meanwhile, Stein centred his campaign on his lasting commitment to combating the opioid crisis and supporting women’s reproductive rights during his time as Attorney General. Stein also foregrounded his advocacy for environmental reform, having negotiated the largest coal ash clean-up in the USA and convincing power company Duke Energy to pay for remediation rather than charge more than $1 billion in energy costs to its electricity customers.
“Tonight the people of North Carolina resoundingly embraced a vision that’s optimistic, forward-looking and welcoming, a vision that’s about creating opportunity for every North Carolinian,” Stein said in his victory speech on Tuesday. “We chose hope over hate, competence over chaos, decency over division.”
