The Deep Divisions at the Heart of North Carolina’s Pivotal Governor’s Race

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, could cement North Carolina as a conservative state if he wins. Democrats hope his incendiary style moves swing voters to their candidate, Josh Stein.

Amber Sniff, a Democrat in Durham, N.C., finds the prospect of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson winning the governor’s race so alarming that she teared up talking about it one recent morning.

“He honestly scares me,” Ms. Sniff said recently, adding: “He’s not what I want for me and my children."

But for Jimmy Connor, a Republican who lives across the state in tiny Clyde, Mr. Robinson represents a Christian-centered way forward and a chance for Republicans to wrest control of an office that they have held only three times in the last century.

“He refers to the Bible, and it makes a difference in the South,” Mr. Connor said, his voice breaking. “My grandkids’ lives are at stake, and the future of this country.”

The sense that North Carolina is at a particularly consequential crossroads looms over the contest, by far the most expensive and closely watched governor’s race in the nation this year, with two candidates whose styles and politics could not be more different. Mr. Robinson, an evangelical firebrand who has faced criticism for his extensive record of incendiary remarks, is facing Josh Stein, the Democratic state attorney general, who has cast himself as a subdued moderate in the style of Gov. Roy Cooper.

The race was considered neck and neck through much of the summer; North Carolina has a staunchly conservative legislature, a history of close elections and an outgoing Democratic governor who has played a moderating role for most of the last decade. But the dynamic has been shifting amid several recent developments, the biggest being Vice President Kamala Harris’s ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket.