Winning governor race, North Carolina’s Stein says voters rejected hate, chaos

JTA — Josh Stein, North Carolina’s Democratic attorney general, says the state’s voters “chose hope over hate, competence over chaos, decency over division,” after he beats Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate who once called himself a “Black NAZI.”

“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 says in his victory speech.

Stein, 58, is a centrist Democrat who is the son of a prominent civil rights lawyer. He is active in Temple Beth Or in Raleigh, a Reform synagogue, and has invoked his Judaism publicly. He once coached a kids’ JCC soccer team.

“Our Jewish faith obliges us to do our part to make the world a better place, better than we found it,” he tweeted to mark Rosh Hashanah in 2022. “This principle guides me as your attorney general.”

For the state’s Jewish Democrats, the joy of seeing Stein win may be overshadowed only by the relief of seeing Robinson lose. A newcomer to politics before he won the lieutenant governor’s race in 2020, Robinson has a history of offensive posts, including on adult websites, that emerged in a litany of revelations over the last year.

Besides calling himself a “Nazi,” Robinson has written dismissively about Nazis, posting on Facebook in 2017, “I am so sick of seeing and hearing people STILL talk about Nazis and Hitler and how evil and manipulative they were. NEWS FLASH PEOPLE, THE NAZIS (National Socialist) ARE GONE! We did away with them.”