Who is Jeff Jackson, the Democrat who will take over as NC’s next attorney general?
For the first time in eight years, North Carolina will have a new attorney general.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson, a Charlotte Democrat who is currently serving his first term in Congress, will be sworn in as the 52nd attorney general of North Carolina in January, after he defeated fellow U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop , a Republican also from Charlotte, in the closely watched race that culminated Tuesday.
A former state senator and prosecutor in Gaston County, Jackson will succeed Josh Stein, a Democrat who has served two terms as attorney general after being first elected in 2016.
Stein, following in the footsteps of Democrats Roy Cooper and Mike Easley, who each served multiple terms as attorney general before running for governor, will be sworn in as the state's 76th governor , after he handily defeated Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.
The race between Jackson and Bishop was expected to be one of the most competitive on the ballot this year, owing to the fact that the last two contests for attorney general were won by Stein by margins under a half of a percentage point.
In the end, Jackson defeated Bishop by around 2.6 points, according to unofficial results from the State Board of Elections.
A brief but notable tenure in Congress
Jackson currently represents North Carolina's 14th Congressional District.
He was elected in 2022 after running in a more favorable district than the one GOP state lawmakers had approved in 2021.
Legal challenges over the GOP-drawn congressional district lines led to the Democratic majority on the N.C. Supreme Court striking them down and putting in place — only for that year's election cycle — new districts drawn by outside experts. That resulted in an even 7-7 split between Democrats and Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections. Republicans redrew the map last year and made it all but impossible for a Democrat to win in Jackson's district, triggering his run for state office.
Jackson quickly developed a national profile after arriving in Washington for his use of TikTok and other social media platforms to communicate directly with constituents.
The popularity of his TikTok videos explaining bills and controversies on Capitol Hill soared. Today, he has 2.2 million followers on the short-video app, and his videos have received 38.5 million likes.
One of his most popular videos, an explanation of what led to the crash of Silicon Valley Bank last year, which remains pinned to the top of his profile, has nearly 64,000 comments and more than 30 million views.
Earlier this year, Jackson told The News & Observer that his outreach through social media was based not just on the fact that it's a popular and easy medium to communicate with people, but on wanting to build trust with constituents and campaign supporters .
"I agree that trust in our political leadership probably has never been lower," Jackson said in an interview ahead of the Democratic primary in March. "My sense is that you can't respond to that by telling people that they're wrong, you have to respond with a higher level of transparency. It can be as simple as saying, 'here's what I did today, here's what I'm going to do tomorrow.'"
"To a whole lot of people, nothing I say will matter until I can address their lack of trust, so I better address that first," he said. "And the way I believe in doing that is by reaching people directly. Not many people want to hear from a political party, they want to hear from a person. So, my thinking is to be a person who speaks directly to them with respect. And over time, you'll earn that respect back."
Earlier, a career as a state senator and prosecutor
Before running for Congress, Jackson had launched a bid for the U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by GOP Sen. Richard Burr in 2022. He had previously been mentioned as a possible challenger to Burr or fellow GOP Sen. Thom Tillis in 2016 and 2020, respectively.
Jackson ran an ambitious campaign that began in January 2021. As part of that, he visited all 100 counties in the state. He ultimately dropped out and endorsed former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, who would go on to lose the race to U.S. Sen. Ted Budd.
Between 2014 and 2023, Jackson represented Charlotte and surrounding areas in the N.C. Senate.
He faced what he called his "first real challenge" for reelection in 2020, after court-ordered redistricting reshaped his district, and Republicans fielded a well-funded opponent. He went to win what would be his final term in the Senate.
Prior to serving in the General Assembly, Jackson was a business litigator at the law firm Womble Bond Dickinson, and an assistant district attorney in Gaston County.
Serving in Afghanistan, and Jackson's family
Jackson also serves as a major in the Army National Guard. He enlisted in the military after the Sept. 11 attacks and trained at Fort Liberty, formerly known as Fort Bragg, then deployed to Afghanistan for a year in 2005 , where he was stationed at what he called "a remote desert outpost a few hours north of Kandahar."
During the final few weeks of his competitive Senate race in 2020, Jackson was called up for training by the National Guard. His wife Marisa finished out the final stretch of campaigning on his behalf, helping him defeat opponent Sonja Nichols with 55% of the vote.
Jackson and his wife, the chief marketing officer at the Levine Jewish Community Center, wed in 2012, and have three children: Haden, 16, Owen, 9, and Avery, 5. He's a member of Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte.
Reflecting on his wife's support for his political career, including how she stepped in to see his 2020 reelection campaign through to the end, Jackson wrote on Facebook , on the couple's ninth anniversary in 2021, that when he started thinking about running for higher office, "she was the one who made the strongest case."
"Now we're campaigning together as a family and none of it would be happening without her," he wrote at the time, when he was still seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat.
Jackson's priorities and approach as attorney general
During his successful campaign for attorney general, Jackson said his top priority would be helping law enforcement across the state combat the fentanyl epidemic.
Jackson told The N&O that he plans to employ a two-front approach targeting the supply of illicit fentanyl flooding the state, and helping people struggling with addiction.
In an interview last month , Jackson said he plans to make full use of a recently enacted bipartisan anti-money laundering law, to work more effectively with local, state, and federal law enforcement to investigate and prosecute criminals who are trafficking in fentanyl, and break apart their distribution cells.
On the demand side of the issue, Jackson said he would push to expand access to medicated assisted treatment — "the gold standard for fentanyl addiction" — to help treat more people struggling with opioid use disorder.
"There are a number of counties in North Carolina that have begun using this, and I think there is now very solid data from those counties that that approach is saving lives," Jackson told The N&O. "And what I want to do is take that data and use it to help me push out medicated assisted treatment to counties that aren't using it, to show that we now have a proven model for how to save lives."
He told The N&O he plans to continue leveraging the reach of his TikTok account and other social media platforms as attorney general.
As an example, he said it would be "really important for me to speak directly with young people about how there's no such thing as safe experimentation with drugs anymore, because fentanyl is now laced into everything."
"Having a major social media reach with young people is going to help me save lives," Jackson said.
Jackson has also said he plans to address juvenile crime by increasing outreach to youth through social programs , and will "go after scammers who target our bank accounts, and corporations who break the rules and pollute our water."
While speaking to reporters after his election night victory, Jackson said he planned to meet with Stein, the outgoing attorney general, during his transition into the office.
"He'll give me a sense of issues that are still ongoing, and we'll have a number of candid conversations about that," Jackson said.
