North Carolina's next attorney general will be Democrat Jeff Jackson, after Republican Dan Bishop conceded shortly after 11 p.m. Tuesday.
With almost 90% of precincts reporting, Jackson was winning with 52% of the vote versus Bishop's 48%.
Bishop thanked his supporters and said he regretted not winning in order to strengthen law enforcement. He also said he's unlikely to run for public office again.
The race for the open attorney general seat — current Attorney General Josh Stein won his race for governor — pitted two Charlotte area politicians against each other.
Jackson is a former assistant district attorney from Charlotte. He served in the Army and deployed to Afghanistan, and remains a major in the National Guard. He’s finishing out his first term in Congress. The Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly gerrymandered Jackson’s district, making it extremely unlikely he could win a second term.
Despite his freshman status, Jackson gained recognition for his use of TikTok. His videos, which feature him talking to the camera in a plain-spoken tone, often garner hundreds of thousands or even millions of views.
Bishop is a former Mecklenburg County commissioner who went on to serve in the General Assembly. He was the architect of House Bill 2, the so-called “bathroom bill” that caused intense backlash and was one of the first laws mandating transgender people use the bathroom matching their biological sex.
Now based in Union County, he won a special election in 2019 to serve in the U.S. House, after the previous election results were thrown out following an absentee ballot fraud scandal involving Republican Mark Harris’ campaign. He’s been in Congress since, carving out a place as one of the most conservative members and an outspoken member of the Freedom Caucus.
Their race turned nasty and personal, with Bishop suing Jackson’s campaign for defamation over a push poll that asked voters if they would vote for Bishop knowing he had represented people who stole money from the elderly (something Bishop says he never did). Jackson’s campaign threatened legal action against Bishop for ads linking him to a convicted sex offender who Jackson was seen embracing on stage at an event (Jackson said he didn’t know the man was a sex offender).
