On Feb. 28, the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy hosted North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein ’88 for an event titled “Finding Common Ground: Leadership During a Politically Polarized Time.” Stein, a first-term Democrat in a state won by Republican President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, spoke about governing across party lines in a swing state and the importance of political partnership amid polarization.
Stein argued that lawmakers and aspiring politicians need to “compartmentalize” partisan conflicts to collaborate with members across the aisle on policies that help people. Although he is currently involved in three litigation disputes with state Republicans over the powers of the state’s executive and judiciary branches, Stein said putting partisan disputes “in a drawer” has allowed collaboration with Republicans on Hurricane Helene relief, public safety and access to health care.
Two of Stein’s former classmates, Rockefeller Center policy fellow and public policy professor Charles Wheelan ’88 and Rockefeller Center board of visitors chair David Duckenfield ’88, moderated the event. Approximately 175 people attended in Filene Auditorium, while 60 people livestreamed the event on YouTube, according to Rockefeller Center assistant director for public programs Dvora Greenberg Koelling.
In an interview after the event, Stein said he hopes attendees left feeling “motivated” by his talk to “[make] things better in the lives of people around them.”
“For some people, it may be running for elected office,” Stein said. “[For others,] it may be being a school teacher. I just want folks to know that they can make a difference in the lives of other people.”
Stein served in the North Carolina Senate from 2009 to 2016 and as state attorney general from 2017 to January 2025, when he took office as governor. During the event, he emphasized the importance of connecting with “issues that voters care about” in contested elections and referenced his past record of working with Republican legislators on key issues while he was campaigning for the 2024 gubernatorial election.
“[Voters] just want to know that you care about the same issues they care about, that you’re going to work hard on them and you have the ability to actually effect some change,” Stein said.
According to Stein, North Carolina’s political landscape is split “50-50,” which encourages lawmakers to appeal to voters “in the middle.” In states firmly aligned with either party, candidates typically “talk more to the base,” resulting in elected representatives with extremes that may not represent the broader electorate, he added.
“You end up having representation in Congress that is much more to the right than even Republicans are or much more to the left than where the median Democrat is,” Stein said.
Similarly to his partnership with Republican legislators as governor, Stein credited the success of his policy initiatives as state attorney general — including the elimination of backlogged rape kits and the enactment of laws to fight the opioid crisis and protect children from sexual abuse — to his partnership with a Republican legislature.
“There are a lot of issues where there is potential for common ground, and if all you are is in fight mode, you’ll never find that common ground,” Stein said.
Stein cited Hurricane Helene relief efforts as one example of such bipartisanship. When the hurricane caused $60 billion of damage and more than 100 deaths in North Carolina last September, a “rightly troubled” Trump “lit the fire underneath” the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to secure assistance, Stein said. Trump’s first trip out of Washington, D.C., post-inauguration was to Asheville, N.C., to survey damage from Hurricane Helene, according to Stein.
“I thanked him for that and acknowledged it publicly,” Stein said. “That doesn’t mean when he says things about FEMA that I think are untrue, I say what he’s saying.”
According to Koelling, Stein also participated in a class visit, student lunch and dinner with Hillel at Dartmouth in addition to the Rockefeller Center event. Koelling said Stein was an “incredibly relevant voice to bring to campus right now” as a Democratic governor of a state that voted for Trump, in addition to being an alumnus.
“A lot of the conversation around politics seems to have been flattened into a one-dimensional quote or tweet or meme,” Koelling said. “What [the Rockefeller Center] is really trying to do is take that and stretch it back out into a three-dimensional conversation.”
Atticus Belcher ’28 said he attended the event to hear Stein’s thoughts on the Democratic Party’s success in southern states, adding that his home state of Tennessee — which is demographically “not all that different” from North Carolina — can elect a Democratic governor despite being a Republican stronghold.
“The Democratic Party in Tennessee [and] a lot of southern states … just [doesn’t] really have a direction … because there’s not enough people who believe that real change can be enacted,” Belcher said. “It just takes the right type of leader. Josh Stein is the perfect type of leader for North Carolina.”
Belcher added that he also wanted to hear Stein’s thoughts on how Democrats can move past Trump’s focus on “red meat issues,” such as immigration, and get “to the heart of what voters want.”
“The answers he gave were phenomenal,” Belcher said. “I’m really blown away. I hope he runs for president someday.”
Attendee Oleksandr Zavalov ’26 said he wanted to hear Stein’s “views on the future of U.S. support for Ukraine,” noting that he finds it “very interesting” to hear different perspectives on international relations as a government major.
“I just returned from the Munich Security Conference, so I actually met the governor of Georgia there,” Zavalov said. “It’s interesting to hear different perspectives from governors of different states.”
Kelsey Wang is a reporter and editor for The Dartmouth from the greater Seattle area, majoring in history and government. Outside of The D, she likes to crochet, do jigsaw puzzles and paint.
