Dan Bishop is confident that his promise to help law enforcement “restore law and order” will resonate with voters as they head to the polls and choose a new attorney general next week.

Republicans haven’t won a race for attorney general in North Carolina in more than a century, but after the last two elections were decided by razor thin margins, and with this year’s race being one of the most competitive on the ballot, the GOP congressman told The News & Observer he is “cautiously optimistic” about his chances of winning.

If he does defeat Democratic U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson, Bishop said in an interview last week that he believes it will be because his campaign tapped into an “enormous eagerness” he’s seen on the trail from voters who want to “turn the page” on “weak criminal justice policies” and “antagonism” towards policing and tough criminal penalties.

It’s a message that Republicans at all levels have been hammering for the last four years, and have made a central theme in this year’s election, in every race from the presidential contest to important down-ballot races like the battle for attorney general.

Bishop said that after constantly seeing “lurid headlines” about violent crime, “the disorder produced by a destroyed national border,” and a “revolving door justice system worse than they ever imagined,” voters he’s met while campaigning across the state are “fed up to here with woke policy.”

He also said he believes Democrats are failing to understand that voters support a strong approach to dealing with crime and public safety that he said reflects “common sense.”

“It’s not ideologically right-wing to say that we’re going to have robust policing,” Bishop said.

Bishop touts his support from law enforcement

As attorney general, Bishop said he would fully exercise the “informal leadership role” that comes with the job and set a tone as the state’s top law enforcement official of projecting “confidence” in the criminal justice system, and standing up for law enforcement.

He touted the support he’s received from law enforcement, including endorsements from the N.C. Division of the Police Benevolent Association, the N.C. Fraternal Order of Police, and more than 50 sheriffs in the state, and said he would work closely with sheriffs, police chiefs, and prosecutors.

Bishop said he would also use the bully pulpit to shine a light on areas of the criminal justice system where things aren’t working, or need attention. He cited juvenile crime as an example.

“I voted for ‘Raise the Age’ along with virtually everybody else in 2017, it was a big national trend and everything, but juvenile crime is out of control,” Bishop said.

Lawmakers passed the “Raise the Age” bill in 2017, moving 16-and 17-year-olds accused of misdemeanors and low-level felonies from the adult system to the juvenile justice system starting in 2019.

But this year, GOP state lawmakers passed legislation requiring teens of those ages who commit certain felonies to be tried initially as adults in superior court, and enacted it over Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto with party-line votes in June.

Bishop said that even though Jackson has highlighted the fact that he’s the only former prosecutor in the race, he doesn’t have the same experience handling different kinds of cases that Bishop does from nearly 30 years as an attorney.

ICE cooperation bill, the border, and fentanyl

During this year’s campaign, Bishop has also touted efforts by GOP lawmakers to compel sheriffs in largely Democratic counties to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in cases where people who are in the country illegally are arrested and the federal agency is trying to take custody of them.

The latest version of that bill, which Republicans combined with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for private school vouchers in a mini-budget, was vetoed by Cooper in September. Republicans plan to override Cooper’s veto, but have not yet done so.

Bishop said he is well versed in the situation at the southern border, having served on the House Committee on Homeland Security since he was first elected to Congress in 2019, and said he has “a network of close relationships” with those who will likely end up in positions to enforce immigration laws in a potential second Trump administration.

If, as is expected, the ICE cooperation bill is enacted over Cooper’s veto, Bishop said he “will enthusiastically undertake the role of seeing to it that sheriffs and law enforcement agencies throughout North Carolina fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities, in order to get control of our nation’s borders.”

Earlier this year, before lawmakers convened for the short legislative session, Bishop suggested that Republicans include a provision in the bill to grant the attorney general the authority “to take action to procure compliance.”

An enforcement provision of that nature was added, allowing anyone, including law enforcement authorities, to file a complaint if they believed sheriffs or jail administrators weren’t complying with the provisions of the bill, with the attorney general, who could seek a court order to compel cooperation with ICE. The provision was later taken out, due in part to concerns expressed by the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association.

House Rules Chairman Destin Hall, the bill’s main sponsor, previously told The N&O that the enforcement provision could be further discussed and worked on next year.

Bishop has said that addressing the fentanyl epidemic, which Jackson has identified as his top priority, also requires first addressing border security. During the only debate between both candidates in Charlotte in June, Bishop said that no laws would stop fentanyl from reaching North Carolinians without action being taken at the border.

“The problem, if you ask a law enforcement officer or DA in North Carolina, is an unsecured border where fentanyl pours over the border,” he said at the time.

Election concerns and Mark Robinson

Throughout the course of the campaign, Democrats have said Bishop and other Republicans on the ballot including Trump and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running for governor, are too “extreme” for North Carolina.

Bishop has been routinely criticized for writing House Bill 2, the state’s highly controversial “bathroom bill,” in 2016, which required that people use public bathrooms corresponding to their sex assigned at birth, and generated a swift backlash here in the state but nationally as well.

Jackson’s campaign has drawn attention to Bishop’s support for Robinson, particularly after a CNN report alleging that Robinson made a series of racist, sexually graphic, and antisemitic comments on the message board of a pornography website a decade ago upended the governor’s race and rocked Robinson’s campaign.

Asked about Robinson, Bishop reiterated that he is focused on the attorney general’s race, and believes that “whatever happens in any other race on the ballot is really between the candidates for that office, and the people of North Carolina.”

During Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign launch last year, Bishop said in a video message that Robinson was “the most formidable candidate I’ve ever seen in North Carolina,” and this April, said it would be “essential to have Mark Robinson with a sidekick who can see to it that the lawfare guys don’t bury him in process.”

He added that it would be even more important for him to win if Robinson ended up losing his race, to ensure laws passed by the GOP-legislature are defended and enforced.

In recent days, Jackson’s campaign has also slammed Bishop for praising Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who brought a lawsuit after the 2020 election seeking to contest the results in four battleground states that was shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Bishop also joined 146 other Republicans in Congress in voting to overturn the 2020 election results in certain key states.

Bishop said that the concerns he’s articulated about the last election have been “precise” and that he’s never been interested in “casting aspersions for the sake of just undermining confidence in the election system,” but instead, raising specific issues that included the rules for mail-in voting and how those ballots were handled.

Overall, Bishop said he believed this year’s election, which has seen more than 3 million North Carolinians already cast their ballots during early voting, was running smoothly.

He said he’s glad people are being “vigilant,” and said that when it comes to how the election is being run, his approach is “trust, but verify.”

©2024 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Visit at mcclatchydc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.