From left: North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop (R) and Rep. Jeff Jackson (D)Mother Jones illustration; Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto/ZUMA; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/ZUMA

Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.)— the author of the state’s infamous bathroom law, a fan of calling abortions “infanticide,” and the man who recently said “lawfare” against former President Donald Trump was “as bad as it is (for black people) in Alabama.” in 1950” – looks into the camera and warns against alertness.

“If you don’t feel safe, there’s a reason,” Bishop says. “Violent crime is increasing. More rapes and murders. Capture illegal immigration. The cause? Vigilance Crime Guidelines. Defund the police. Open borders.”

In an ad that reflects the tone of North Carolina’s race, Bishop argues simply: He wants to be the state’s “law and order” attorney general. Such an approach would be a game changer. North Carolina has not had a Republican attorney general in modern history. A victory for the congressman would have significant implications for the state’s politics, not just on criminal justice but also on the checks and balances of a state legislature that has shifted increasingly to the right over the past decade.

But his argument that the state is suffering from out-of-control crime has some flaws.

North Carolina police have not been defunded; After 2020, many local police forces’ budgets increased. While immigration initially rose sharply under President Joe Biden, it has fallen dramatically after a crackdown. And there is no evidence that the increase in crime is due to illegal immigrants.

His claim, which is most directly related to the job he hopes to win, concerns the overall violent crime rate. In the ad, there is a simple graphic behind Bishop: two arrows pointing up, showing that rapes have increased by 55 percent and murders have increased by 32 percent. Under Democrats, the GOP says, the country has become a place of violence. You are attacked, and She I don’t care.

The truth is more complicated. A Mother Jones The analysis did not reveal any data configuration consistent with these numbers. Bishop’s analysis for both rapes and murders appears to use counts instead of rates, ignoring population changes, which is not best practice. And strangely enough, even using counts, the math seems a bit askew.

Murder and rape rates in North Carolina are in line with general trends in the country, casting doubt on the argument that Democrats have posed unique challenges to the state. After a steady increase from 2017 to 2020, with a significant increase during the pandemic, rape and murder rates in North Carolina — and across the country — have declined. Violent crime has increased significantly over the past decade, but Bishop’s statistics do not reflect the trend in context and appear to be flawed. (Bishop’s campaign did not respond to multiple calls seeking comment.)

In a normal one Election year in North Carolina, spreading the truth, inaccurate data on a key campaign issue, and Bishop’s combative style would attract some attention. But during this campaign season, time seems difficult for voters and the media the meaning of the race. Over the past decade, the Democratic AG has repeatedly limited the power of the Republican-dominated state legislature, which is committed to passing extremist laws.

“Early on we expected this to be a really hotly contested, nasty and expensive race,” said Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University and author of Anatomy of a Purple Statetold me. “But there just wasn’t much oxygen left for this incredibly important and hard-fought race.”

A major cause of oxygen loss was governor competition. In September, CNN exposed Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s provocative posts on the website Nude Africa that plunged his campaign into a double-digit deficit. The story broke just weeks after Vice President Kamala Harris floated the possibility of Gov. Roy Cooper as a possible vice presidential candidate. And shortly after, Hurricane Helene devastated the western half of the state. (In the wake of the storm, the state’s Republican-dominated Supreme Court gained prominence when it upheld Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vanity project of a ballot-tampering campaign.) Then there’s the fact that North Carolina isn’t just one state close swing state, but could decide based on certain Electoral College calculations the presidential election.

The battle to become the state’s next attorney general pits two incumbent congressmen against each other and has become the most expensive race for the office in history. Jackson is a moderate Democrat who has become a regular on TikTok and is known for explaining his politics on camera in monologues on social media. Gerryman was forced out of his current district and ran on a centrist’s traditional platform: anti-crime, pro-family, lots of nods to his suburban-friendly background as a veteran and former prosecutor.

With a vocal congressional Freedom Caucus backbencher facing off against a social media-loving Democrat, the hotly contested race was expected to draw attention. Bishop is one of 20 Republicans who voted against former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and challenged the results of the 2020 election.

Robinson’s Harlequin post on the forum may also have prematurely decided the governor’s race, turning the AG election into a contest that could fundamentally change the state’s political identity. Current Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat who appears to be headed for the governor’s mansion, won the office in 2020 with 50.1 percent of the vote. (It was just 3,000 voters away from a possible recount.) Before Stein, Cooper had held the AG seat for over a decade.

Since 2010, Republicans had near-total control of the General Assembly—the state legislature—and sought to implement myriad right-wing goals. State legislatures’ efforts to achieve key policy goals — such as voter ID and the infamous anti-trans bathroom bill authored by Bishop — have been stymied by Democratic attorneys general.

“This is a position that matters,” Professor Cooper said. “And it’s especially important in a bipartisan dynamic.” The AG job “would allow (Bishop) to litigate things like voter ID” and “defend the Republican General Assembly in court.”

If Stein wins the governor’s office, there will be veto power. But since Gov. Cooper’s first victory in 2012, a Democratic governor and attorney general have created an underappreciated dual control of North Carolina’s rightward shift.

North Carolina is considered a gentlemanly southern state with a progressive tendency, as the political scientist VO Key Jr. noted as early as 1949. In 2020, former President Donald Trump won North Carolina by the narrowest margin of victory of any state. But its current status as “purple,” as Cooper explained, is because “about half (of voters) are pretty bright blue and about half are pretty bright red.”

Although North Carolina has not elected a Republican attorney general since 1896, members of both parties view it as a starting point for the governor’s office. Outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper and prospective incoming Gov. Josh Stein, as well as former Gov. Mike Easley, were all attorneys general. “The joke is that the AG stands for the incoming governor,” Professor Cooper noted.

Both Bishop and Jackson are ambitious members of Congress hoping for a larger role on the national stage that would benefit them as state AGs. Such positions provide a history of headline-grabbing lawsuits over election results, social media and drugs. It’s easy to imagine Bishop making threats about election integrity, following the path taken by other Republican attorneys general across the country over the past four years and questioning the veracity of the 2020 election.

“The General Assembly has ruled with an iron fist and completely transformed the state in some fundamental ways,” says Cooper of Western Carolina University. “It changed the power dynamic between institutions.” Ultimately, a Bishop victory could upend North Carolina’s centrist political identity.

Melissa Lewis contributed data analysis and reporting.