RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s next attorney general will be one of two outgoing congressmen who represented the Charlotte region on Capitol Hill and previously in the state legislature.

Both Democratic U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson and Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop are lawyers and prolific fundraisers. Each has argued that their rival is too radical to become the state’s top law enforcement official on Nov. 5.

The winner will succeed two-term Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic nominee for governor. Democrats dominate the office — no Republican has been elected attorney general since 1896 — although Republicans have performed well in other statewide elections for decades. In both 2016 and 2020, Stein won by less than 25,000 votes over his Republican opponent.

This fall’s election campaign has focused largely on who is best positioned to represent the nation’s ninth-largest state in court and keep its communities safe. While State Bureau of Investigation numbers show North Carolina’s violent crime rate was higher in 2023 than a decade ago, it remained essentially unchanged compared to 2022.

The two candidates and their allied PACs were on track to spend at least $31 million combined on television and online advertising during the general election campaign, according to data from AdImpact, which monitors campaign spending. The North Carolina race is among the most closely watched of the 10 attorney general elections taking place across the U.S. next month.

The attorney general’s job is to represent the state in court and defend the work of locally elected district attorneys in criminal appeals. AGs also make legislative recommendations to the General Assembly and have sued certain industries for damages in the past, including tobacco, drug and social media companies.

The fact that two members of the U.S. Congress are seeking positions in state government reflects the growing influence of the position increasingly partisan role State attorneys general play a role in supporting or opposing federal government policies in court.

Jackson is an Afghan war veteran and National Guard attorney who has gained a large following on social media and was elected to Congress in 2022. He has expressed his experience as a prosecutor – he worked as an assistant district attorney in Gaston County, handling various types of criminal cases – and his commitment to fulfilling his duties in an impartial matter make him the most qualified candidate.

“The job is fundamentally about providing people with protection from those who want to harm them,” Jackson said in a recent interview. “I spent my entire career doing this, as a soldier, as a prosecutor. That’s why I want to be attorney general.”

Bishop, a longtime commercial litigation attorney, former Mecklenburg County commissioner and state legislator, joined Congress in 2019 and is a strong supporter of Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump.

Bishop downplayed Jackson’s legal history as an assistant district attorney, emphasizing what he estimates to be his own 400-plus appearances in state and federal courts.

“I have had extensive and complex experiences with the justice system in North Carolina,” Bishop said in an interview. “He’s never had a career like this.”

Jackson said that if elected, he would work to address the fentanyl overdose epidemic and combat fraudsters who are now using artificial intelligence techniques to deceive consumers.

Bishop accused Jackson of being “extensive in dealing with crime and hostile to the police.” He said what North Carolina needs is “restoration of law and order” and that he will work to recruit what he sees as liberal-leaning district attorneys who don’t do that.

The position was a stepping stone for gubernatorial bids — outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper served as attorney general for 16 years. In recent years, Cooper and Stein have stopped defending Republican-driven state laws that they say are unconstitutional.

Jackson said in a recent interview that Stein was Right to refuse the defense Provisions of state law that restrict medication abortions and dictate what a doctor must do before prescribing abortion pills.

But Bishop contends that Stein’s motive for not defending state laws passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly was to advance his political career — and he claimed that Jackson would do the same if elected.

Jackson and Bishop served together in the state legislature, where Bishop implemented a 2016 law It banned cities from enacting new anti-discrimination ordinances and required transgender people to use public restrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate.

Jackson did not seek re-election to Congress this fall after the General Assembly remapped legislative maps and reassigned him to a heavily Republican district.

Jackson and his allies have also pointed to Bishop’s endorsement of Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson for governor, particularly after a CNN report that alleged Robinson posted explicitly racist and sexual posts on the message board of a pornography website. Robinson has denied the accusation.

Asked if he doesn’t mind continuing to support Robinson, Bishop said he’s focused on winning the race for attorney general and that “all issues affecting the governor’s race are between Mark and the voters.” But Jackson said it was “absurd” that Bishop “can’t bring himself to say a single critical word” about Robinson.

Earlier this month, Bishop filed a defamation lawsuit against Jackson’s campaign and others, claiming that at least some of them were responsible for a political poll that asked whether a voter would be more or less likely to vote for Bishop if he “represented people who stole money from the elderly.” . Bishop says he has never represented people like that. Jackson’s campaign has indicated the lawsuit will be unsuccessful.