Democrats eager to hold onto term-limited North Carolina governor Roy Cooper’s seat are giving voters an early-summer preview of their general-election strategy to boost his successor-in-waiting: Focus on public safety. 

The left-leaning nonprofit advocacy group America Works USA is launching a new ad this week boosting North Carolina attorney general Josh Stein, Democrats’ 2024 gubernatorial nominee, who is locked in an incredibly competitive general-election race against the state’s first black Republican lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson. The new spot is part of a seven-figure ad campaign that is airing statewide on digital and TV platforms.

“A store clerk. A woman leaving a ball game. A 16-year-old girl. All victims of sexual assault whose attackers went free because DNA evidence was ignored,” a narrator reads in the 30-second spot, set to air this week and first shared with National Review. “Then Attorney General Josh Stein wrote a law requiring all rape kits be tested, finally closing decades-old cases, putting their attackers behind bars. 

“Thousands entered into the DNA database that led to 114 arrests,” the ad continues. “By taking predators off the street, Josh Stein is protecting North Carolina.”

North Carolina is a quirky, red-leaning battleground that tends to elect Democrats to the governor’s mansion. Keeping the focus on public safety is a smart move for Stein, who is temperamentally moderate but has said he will campaign alongside President Joe Biden this cycle in a state Donald Trump carried in 2016 and 2020.

More on this toss-up race soon.