Joshua Harold Stein is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the 76th governor of North Carolina since 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, Stein served from 2017 to 2025 as the 51st attorney general of North Carolina and from 2009 to 2016 in the North Carolina Senate.
Born in Washington, D.C., Stein moved to North Carolina with his family at an early age. He studied at Dartmouth College and earned his Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before being elected to represent North Carolina's 16th Senate district in 2008. Stein left the State Senate upon winning the Democratic nomination in the 2016 North Carolina Attorney General election, in which he defeated Republican nominee Buck Newton by 0.54%. He was reelected in 2020, narrowly defeating Republican nominee Jim O'Neill by 0.26%.
