Forsyth County's District Attorney Jim O'Neill is making a second run for statewide office, taking on incumbent Josh Stein for state Attorney General.
O'Neill, a Republican, is currently serving his third term as Forsyth's chief prosecutor. In 2016 he ran for attorney general of North Carolina but was defeated in the primary.
O'Neill wants to take some of his local programs statewide, including the DATA program, a drug-treatment alternative for low-level offenders.
Stein is making his first bid for re-election. Fighting sex crimes is among the major topics of his campaign. He says he's started new programs to improve the turnaround time for sexual assault kits and backed the Safe Child Act, which protects children from online predators.
As of June, Stein had raised nearly ten times more money than his challenger, and analysts including the Cook Report consider the seat to be leaning Democratic.