2020 North Carolina Attorney General election
The 2020 North Carolina election for Attorney General was held on November 3, 2020, to elect the Attorney General of North Carolina, concurrently with the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as well as elections to the United States Senate and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
Party primary elections were held on March 3, 2020.
Incumbent Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, first elected in 2016, ran for re-election against Republican Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O'Neill. With a narrow margin separating Stein and O'Neill, the Associated Press was finally able to call Stein the winner on November 17, 2020,. This also made this attorney general race the closest of the 2020 election cycle.
Democratic primary
Candidates
Nominee
- Josh Stein, incumbent attorney general
Republican primary
Candidates
Nominee
- Jim O'Neill, Forsyth County district attorney and candidate for North Carolina Attorney General in 2016
Eliminated in primary
- Sam Hayes, general counsel for the North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell
- Christine Mumma, executive director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence
General election
Polling
| Poll source | Date administered | Sample size | Margin of error | Josh Stein | Jim O'Neill | Other | Undecided |
| East Carolina University | October 27–28, 2020 | 1,103 | ± 3.4% | 49% | 42% | 3% | 6% |
| Meeting Street Insights | October 24–27, 2020 | 600 | ± 4% | 49% | 44% | – | 4% |
| East Carolina University | October 15–18, 2020 | 1,155 | ± 3.4% | 49% | 44% | 2% | 5% |
| East Carolina University | October 2–4, 2020 | 1,232 | ± 3.2% | 43% | 46% | 2% | 9% |
| Cardinal Point Analytics | July 22–24, 2020 | 735 | ± 3.6% | 40% | 45% | – | 15% |
| Cardinal Point Analytics | July 13–15, 2020 | 547 | ± 4.2% | 43% | 43% | – | 14% |
Results
By congressional district
Despite losing the state, O'Neill won eight of 13 congressional districts.| District | Stein | O'Neill | Representative |
| 56% | 44% | G. K. Butterfield | |
| 65% | 35% | George Holding | |
| 65% | 35% | Deborah K. Ross | |
| 39% | 61% | Greg Murphy | |
| 67% | 33% | David Price | |
| 34% | 66% | Virginia Foxx | |
| 62% | 38% | Mark Walker | |
| 62% | 38% | Kathy Manning | |
| 43% | 57% | David Rouzer | |
| 48% | 52% | Richard Hudson | |
| 46% | 54% | Dan Bishop | |
| 33% | 67% | Patrick McHenry | |
| 45% | 55% | Madison Cawthorn | |
| 70% | 30% | Alma Adams | |
| 34% | 66% | Ted Budd |