2024 North Carolina gubernatorial election

The 2024 North Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 5, 2024, to elect the governor of North Carolina. It was held concurrently with the 2024 presidential election and other elections. Democratic state attorney general Josh Stein defeated Republican lieutenant governor Mark Robinson. He succeeded Democratic incumbent Roy Cooper, who was term-limited.

Primary elections took place on March 5, 2024. Stein won the Democratic nomination with 70% of the vote over former state Supreme Court Justice Michael R. Morgan and Robinson won the Republican nomination with 65% of the vote over state treasurer Dale Folwell.

Initially a tight race, Robinson's history of controversial statements and revelations of comments he made on a pornographic website led to Stein gaining a significant polling advantage. Stein went on to win the election by 14.8 percentage points, the largest margin for a gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina since Jim Hunt in 1980, as well as winning counties that had not voted Democratic since 2008 (Franklin and Jackson), 2004 (Alamance, Brunswick, and Transylvania), and 1980 (Cabarrus and Henderson). Stein was also the only Democrat in 2024 to win a gubernatorial race in a state Donald Trump won in the concurrent presidential race. Robinson became the first Republican gubernatorial candidate since 1976 to not flip a county in the state.

Stein received more than three million votes, the most of any candidate in the history of statewide elections in North Carolina. He is the first Jewish governor of the state. Analysts have credited Stein's large margin of victory with helping down-ballot Democrats in concurrent elections. Stein received 354,121 more votes than Harris, while Robinson received 657,114 votes less than Trump.

According to exit polls, Stein won independent voters by 23 percentage points, which contributed to Robinson's defeat.

Following his loss, Robinson retired from politics.