As early voting started across North Carolina on Oct. 17, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein held a virtual press conference for student journalists across the state. Throughout the press conference, Stein focused on issues such as public education, the economy and LGBTQ+ rights. He also heavily contrasted his own campaign with his Republican counterpart’s, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.
Stein said he has made it a priority to energize college students to vote in this election cycle. He has campaigned on college campuses across North Carolina — including the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill, where he launched “Students for Stein,” an outreach method to get college students to interact with the campaign. This was the second time the Stein campaign held a virtual press conference for student journalists.
Stein has made public education a focal point of his campaign, citing North Carolina’s status as 48th in the nation per pupil funding and investment and 46th in starting teacher pay. His plan included investing more in public education to recruit teachers and other support staff such as school nurses and counselors.
“We have to give them support, whether it’s more school social workers, school counselors, school nurses, who can help young people deal with the challenges that they’re facing,” Stein said during the event. “They can then focus on learning when they’re in the classroom.”
Stein addressed the support North Carolina’s Republican lawmakers have for school vouchers and the impacts that has on funding public schools. School vouchers siphon public funds to parents to pay for private school tuition.
“The defunding of public education that the Republicans have embarked on, it’s a half a billion dollars they are taking of public taxpayer money away from public schools to give to unaccountable private schools,” Stein said.
On the economy, Stein said he is focused on bringing better jobs to North Carolina to increase wages through his proposed Working Families Tax Cut. This is a tax credit that “would provide an average of $520 a year to 1 million North Carolina families, or nearly $1,500 to a family with three children,” according to his campaign.
Increasing the state minimum wage is another aspect of Stein’s economic plan. The minimum wage in North Carolina has stayed at $7.25 since 2008.
LGBTQ+ rights in North Carolina have been an issue the two gubernatorial candidates have had differing opinions on. During the press conference, Stein condemned Robinson’s previous rhetoric surrounding members of the LGBTQ+ communities and promoted his past support of non-discrimination policies.
“When I was in the general assembly, regularly introduced the employment non-discrimination act," Stein said. “State governments could not discriminate against LGBTQ folks in their employment.”
Stein touched on his past accomplishments as North Carolina state attorney general — a position he has been in since 2017 — such as working with a bipartisan coalition of state attorney generals to hold drug companies who had an impact on the opioid crisis accountable, as well as addressing the states rape kit backlog problem.
“When I came into office, we discovered there 16,000 of these untested rape kits in local law enforcement offices across North Carolina, which was more than any state in this country,” Stein said. “I sat down with my team and I said, we have to address this.”
Stein’s final message to readers of student publications: vote.
“It’s really empowering, and I hope voters embrace the opportunity to have their voice heard,” Stein said.