Many Irish people would struggle to place North Carolina on a map. But its governor Josh Stein knows all about Ireland, and is hoping to develop closer ties in business and tourism.
He said 50 Irish companies have operations in North Carolina, operating across a range of sectors, including life sciences, medical devices, financial technology, chemicals and agricultural processing.
“That’s 7,000 North Carolinians who get up and go to work every day, and they get a pay cheque from an Irish company that supports a family,” Stein said.
Ireland is the third-largest source of imports into the east coast state and the 10th-largest destination for North Carolina exports. Most of the goods traded between the two are pharmaceuticals or vaccines, reflecting the close links between the two regions in life sciences and healthcare.
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Another feature of North Carolina that is not widely known in Ireland is its significance to US politics.
Republicans hold both Senate seats in North Carolina and Donald Trump won the presidential vote there in 2020 and 2024, by margins of 1.3 per cent and 3.2 per cent. It is considered to be a purple, or swing, state that can go either way.
Stein is confident Democrats can win the crucial US Senate seat midterm elections in this bellwether state that could render Trump a lame-duck president in his final two years in office.
Republican candidate Michael Whatley, who is endorsed by Trump, is facing Stein’s predecessor, former Democratic governor Roy Cooper, in the election. The seat is being vacated by the Republican Thom Tillis, who was one of only three Republican senators who voted against Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill.
Stein has been governor since 2025 having been a long-serving attorney general in the state. He is a calm, low-key operator who has built a reputation for consensus building rather than a partisan approach to politics. He was in Dublin last weekend to see the University of North Carolina beat Texas Christian University in an American college football game in the Aviva Stadium.
The people of North Carolina are very accustomed to splitting their ticket
— Josh Stein
“There’s no question that it’s possible because Roy Cooper won in 2016 and 2020 [in the gubernatorial election] at the same time that Trump won,” he said.
“I won in 2016 and 2020 [as attorney general] and 2024 [gubernatorial election] when Trump won. The people of North Carolina are very accustomed to splitting their ticket. We have people who are really evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, and so it can go either way.
“I’ll leave the predictions to others. I know Roy Cooper very well. He is a good man who will make a great senator, and I am one North Carolinian who will, with great excitement, cast my ballot for him,” he said.
At present the Republicans have a slim majority in the Senate, holding 53 of the 100 seats across the 50 states. The Democrats hope they can wrest back control by flipping at least four of the 33 seats up for decision in the midterms.
The governor said the relationship between North Carolina and Ireland was rooted in history but had developed into a significant modern economic partnership. North Carolina was one of the original 13 American colonies and about 10 per cent of its population claims Irish ancestry.
Stein was speaking to The Irish Times at the new Uniphar facility near Rathcoole, Co Dublin. The Irish medicines conglomerate has a significant presence in North Carolina.
Stein’s visit also comes as North Carolina continues to recover from Hurricane Helene, which devastated large parts of western North Carolina in September 2024.
The storm affected roughly a quarter of the state, killed 108 people and caused an estimated $60 billion (€51.7 billion) in damage.
The geography of western North Carolina has complicated the recovery. Roads frequently run alongside rivers, while homes and properties can sit across waterways from the main road. Stein said hundreds of privately owned bridges providing access to homes and driveways were washed away.
“We are rebuilding hundreds and hundreds of these bridges,” he said. “So the work is hard. We are focused on doing it with urgency, and we’re having success. A lot of stuff is happening.”
But Stein said North Carolina still needs substantially more federal assistance.
He has requested $10 billion from the federal government for the recovery. “No money has come from Washington since 2024, in the last presidential administration and the last Congress, so it’s time for this administration and this Congress to step up,” he said.
Stein also sees significant potential for stronger tourism links between North Carolina and Ireland.
The state is now directly connected to Ireland, with Aer Lingus operating a Dublin to Raleigh-Durham service and American Airlines flying between Dublin and Charlotte.
That makes North Carolina a potential gateway for Irish tourists, particularly given the state’s combination of mountains, beaches, cities and historic attractions. Stein said Ireland is already the sixth-largest European source of visitors to North Carolina, with about 6,000 Irish people visiting each year.
