NC GOV 2024 - Stein (D) vs Robinson (R)

[Spectator]

Endorsed, I guess?

Is it just me or have candidates begun to announce so early just in recent cycles? I feel it's a bit premature.

It has to be for fundraising reasons, or something.

Yeah, I think fundraising plays a part in it. But I also think the early announcement is an attempt to clear the primary. He entered the race before anyone else and came in with a lot of endorsements, including from potential rivals (e.g., Jeff Jackson, Robert Reives etc.). I wouldn’t be surprised if Stein runs for the Democratic nomination unopposed (or with just nominal opposition).

Oh really, Jackson endorsed him? That was probably his most likely opponent. I wonder if that means Jackson has his eye on Attorney General when his seat is inevitably drawn out from under him.

[Spectator]

This one probably depends on who wins North Carolina at the Presidential level. Since I think that will be the Republican nominee, this is no better than a tossup for Democrats, though they did get their strongest candidate by a mile here.

Trump's coattails weren't enough to carry Pat McCrory or Dan Forest over the finish line.

Or Josh Stein's own opponents. Stein will probably do better than Biden, even if it's marginally, and that matters in a state like NC.

[Spectator]

Endorsed, I guess?

Is it just me or have candidates begun to announce so early just in recent cycles? I feel it's a bit premature.

It has to be for fundraising reasons, or something.

Yeah, I think fundraising plays a part in it. But I also think the early announcement is an attempt to clear the primary. He entered the race before anyone else and came in with a lot of endorsements, including from potential rivals (e.g., Jeff Jackson, Robert Reives etc.). I wouldn’t be surprised if Stein runs for the Democratic nomination unopposed (or with just nominal opposition).

Oh really, Jackson endorsed him? That was probably his most likely opponent. I wonder if that means Jackson has his eye on Attorney General when his seat is inevitably drawn out from under him.

Yup! Jackson and Wiley Nickel endorsed Stein per the article below. If Republicans dismantle his seat, my guess is Jackson goes for Attorney General. And maybe if Nickel’s seat is gone, Nickel could run for Lieutenant Governor?

https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/politics/josh-stein-north-carolina-governor-candidacy-election-2024/275-edfb5af2-1c9a-443e-80d1-7e9f959fff9b

I wonder if Republicans in the legislature strategically leave Jackson's seat intact to try and prevent him from making a statewide run.

I'm not a gerrymandering expert but, but it seems like it would be a dummymander to try and only get one blue seat out of Mecklenberg.

There are other Democrats in the NC congressional delegation that would be easier to defeat in a statewide race.

I doubt it. Mecklenburg's remainders can be split up efficiently enough to leave Jackson without a winnable seat.

[Spectator]

I actually hope(d) Cheri Beasley would get another chance for higher office. She fought a good fight last year and would truly represent something new.

Why should that come at the expense of Josh Stein when he won his last two elections though?  Just food for thought. Is it because he's white?

[Spectator]

Why is everyone so sure Robinson will win the primary? Guy seems like a loose cannon.

That’s exactly why he’s probably going to win the primary. See Mastriano, Lake, Dixon, Cox, and so on

Republican primary voters are firmly marching hard right at nearly every opportunity.

Am I forgetting who Cox was? Not ringing a bell

[Spectator]

Why is everyone so sure Robinson will win the primary? Guy seems like a loose cannon.

That’s exactly why he’s probably going to win the primary. See Mastriano, Lake, Dixon, Cox, and so on

Republican primary voters are firmly marching hard right at nearly every opportunity.

Am I forgetting who Cox was? Not ringing a bell

The bizarre Dan Cox, who lost spectacularly for Maryland governor.

Ahh, gotcha. I just tuned out MD-Gov and MA-Gov completely once it became clear that Baker couldn’t win denomination and I just always assumed MD-Gov was Safe D no matter what, so I never paid attention to it.

[Spectator]

Yeah, I don’t see Robinson holding up under the scrutiny of a higher profile race. He won in 2020 because no one pays attention to much below Governor.

[Spectator]

I can see this race becoming like PA-Gov 2022. Probably not anywhere near the same margin; but to where Stein does considerably better than Biden, and wins somewhere around high single digits. Robinson is just as insane as Mastriano was.

[Spectator]

And Robinson is dominating the primary polls so far it seems, which is brutal for Republicans.

For all the crap that online lefties often get I'd argue that it's actually the online right-wing social media warriors who have benefited Democrats electorally than vice versa.

Any reason to think Robinson's support is primarily drawn from online stuff? I don't really see much about him there. Yeah, he became prominent for a video that went viral, but he's also the sitting lieutenant governor and none of the other candidates in these hypothetical polls seem particularly strong. Might be reasonable to assume that he would lead either way.

The kind of stuff your crazy conspiratorial Facebook far fighters are known for is the same stuff that Robinson spews

[Spectator]

I hope you are all correct that this could be a Pennsylvania 2022 redux, but I don't think Robinson should be counted out. North Carolina and Pennsylvania are very different states.

It is very polarized, but the D floor seems to be about 46% in presidential years (what the worst-performing statewide Democrat got in 2020). That is a solid enough floor for me to make me comfortable with predicting a Stein victory against Robinson, even if the margin may not necessarily be impressive at face value. Remember, Cooper’s 4.5% win in 2020 is basically a landslide in North Carolina.

I don’t think Trump will win North Carolina again in a rematch, but I’m much less confident in that prediction than I am a gubernatorial race between Stein and Robinson.

[Spectator]

Mastriano 2.0 set to announce tomorrow:

https://19thnews.org/2023/04/north-carolina-governors-race-2024-abortion-lgbtq-rights/

[Spectator]

It's not fair to describe Robinson as incoherent. If you're looking for a 2022 parallel, Robinson is Kari Lake, not Doug Mastriano -- highly extreme to the point of being too far from the state and filled with scandal, but fairly charismatic and a good public speaker. Robinson became the Lt. Governor nominee because he went viral in right-wing circles for his speech at the Greensboro City Council.

I think Kari Lake is a good comparison to Robinson, except Robinson isn't nearly as obsessed over the 2020 election. Also NC Is more conservative than AZ so I think he wins.

You know who else was a statewide elected official? Kris Kobach. He lost by 5 points in 2018 after winning his Secretary of State race in 2014 by 19 points.

Downballot statewide performance isn’t always translatable to Senate or gubernatorial races. Did anyone think Shapiro was going to win by 15 points in 2022 after winning the AG race in 2020 by only 4 points?

You’re correct that North Carolina isn’t Pennsylvania. That doesn’t mean that Robinson can afford defections in a state that will likely be a tossup at the presidential level. The margin might not be big, but I have a hard time seeing how Robinson wins.

I think Stein ends up winning by around 5-7 points. He probably drags Jeff Jackson across in the AG race as a result.

[Spectator]

Y’all all are taking this man too seriously and giving him far too much credit

On Facebook he’s repeatedly called Michelle Obama a man, Hollywood satanic, black democrats slaves, and praised the confederate flag.

He’s also said Antifa wants to beat you, told women that “it’s not their body anymore” when they’re pregnant, and called gay people “devil worshiping child molestors”.

He is more right wing delusional than anyone republicans have nominated for any major state wide office yet

Kari Lake he is not. She at least passed for attractive and was effective at driving the narrative. The narrative here will be solely on his outlandish comments that make Trump look sane by comparison.

[Spectator]

I guess he’ll have his Congressional pension by then, so why not? It’d be weird to have a Congressman vs. Congressman race for state Attorney General, but I guess AG is arguably the best perch from which to launch a gubernatorial bid, and second best to launch a Senate bid (behind only governor).

I think Jeff Jackson would probably win that matchup if Stein is beating Robinson in the gubernatorial race.

[Spectator]

https://twitter.com/Politics1com/status/1666165781715906562?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%...

Tossup ——> Lean D.

Stein has always had the advantage. Once people know how batsh**t Robinson is, the polls won’t look how they do now.

[Spectator]

The problem with NC is that the cities aren't big enough.

Wake (Raleigh) and Mecklenburg (Charlotte), the largest 2 counties by far, are 1 million apiece, and the state has 10 million people, so that is only 20% of the population. NC has other cities of course, and when you add up the next 5 largest: Guilford (Greensboro), Forsyth (Winston-Salem), Durham (Durham), Cumberland (Fayetteville), and Buncombe (Asheville), that gets you to 4 million or 40%.

All of those cities are blue and yet they are outweighed by NC's huge rural population which is getting redder.

Pretty much the only chance NC dems have is to embiggen the major cities as much as possible until the percentage of the population in the top 7 counties is more than 50% of the state.

The other 60% still has decently populated places like New Hanover County, Pitt County, Watauga County, and Orange County. All were won by Biden. And Cabarrus County is swinging decidedly left with Union following by a slower extent.

It’s not that dramatic of a hill to climb for Dems, but they keep seeming to come up just short in every federal race.

[Spectator]

Robinson doing poorly in the early results. Probably a strong sign of Dems crossing over in the primary.

[Spectator]

Meddling effort to nominate Deberry over Jackson in the Dem AG primary failed, Jackson on track to win by over 20 points. Meanwhile, R LG is a hot mess, with a runoff guaranteed. On the D side, Rachel Hunt is actually getting a tiny percent higher of the vote than Stein is in his race and is matching his vote total. Is that a sign of residual goodwill from her famous last name?

[Spectator]

https://twitter.com/jbendery/status/1765494719772033443?s=46&t=s9uZo2Tah6JOs...
A decade ago, this type of statement would've killed any campaign.

It still kills any campaign in a competitive race that isn’t Trump’s.

[Spectator]

I know people here are skeptical since NC isn’t a very elastic state, but I do think Robinson and Morrow have potential to run well behind Trump here. Public executions/lynchings? The Republican AG nominee in Nevada said similar things about executing people and she ended up losing by the biggest margin of any candidate if either party statewide in 2022. EW Jackson lost by a landslide in 2013 for Virginia LG when his ticket mates only narrowly lost.

[Spectator]

I know people here are skeptical since NC isn’t a very elastic state, but I do think Robinson and Morrow have potential to run well behind Trump here. Public executions/lynchings? The Republican AG nominee in Nevada said similar things about executing people and she ended up losing by the biggest margin of any candidate if either party statewide in 2022. EW Jackson lost by a landslide in 2013 for Virginia LG when his ticket mates only narrowly lost.

The thing is though, both of those were in midterms. This is the first time we've had such a horrible candidate in a swing-ish state in a presidential year, and turnout is going to be much higher. It's hard to see Robinson running behind Trump that much, unless he somehow collapses in North Carolina (very, very unlikely).

It still happens—are we forgetting that Cooper and Stein both won two elections apiece with Trump on the ballot? And they weren’t running against people as extreme as Morrow and Robinson.

[Spectator]

I know people here are skeptical since NC isn’t a very elastic state, but I do think Robinson and Morrow have potential to run well behind Trump here. Public executions/lynchings? The Republican AG nominee in Nevada said similar things about executing people and she ended up losing by the biggest margin of any candidate if either party statewide in 2022. EW Jackson lost by a landslide in 2013 for Virginia LG when his ticket mates only narrowly lost.

The thing is though, both of those were in midterms. This is the first time we've had such a horrible candidate in a swing-ish state in a presidential year, and turnout is going to be much higher. It's hard to see Robinson running behind Trump that much, unless he somehow collapses in North Carolina (very, very unlikely).

It still happens—are we forgetting that Cooper and Stein both won two elections apiece with Trump on the ballot? And they weren’t running against people as extreme as Morrow and Robinson.

Stein out ran Biden by less than 2 points. Cooper's performance was impressive in context, but he was an incumbent, and Stein running for Governor lacks that. I want to believe that he'd have the race locked up, but I just don't see there being enough of a divergence between presidential and governor for candidate quality to matter as much as some people think it does.

We’ll have to see. Stein won against a strong opponent who was the sitting District Attorney of one of the bluest counties in North Carolina. I think that fact is overlooked. Dan Forest wasn’t weak either.

For what it’s worth, even if Stein’s overperformance of Biden was once again only a couple points, that’s probably all he needs anyway. For whatever reason, people seem to think Trump won North Carolina by a bigger margin than he actually did when it was extremely close in 2020 and reasonably close in 2016.