RALEIGH, N.C. – Jim Hunt, the influential four-term governor of North Carolina who left a lasting mark on both state and national politics through his commitment to education reform, passed away on Thursday at the age of 88. His daughter, Lieutenant Governor Rachel Hunt, confirmed his death.
Hunt’s tenure as governor spanned an extraordinary 16 years, during which he championed education initiatives, paving the way for what is now considered the modern role of an “education governor.” Under his leadership, North Carolina navigated the economic transition from its traditional reliance on textiles and tobacco to embracing a burgeoning high-tech sector.
Rachel Hunt revealed that her father died peacefully at their family home in Wilson County.
“He dedicated his life to public service, driven by a vision to expand opportunities, strengthen communities, and prioritize the welfare of North Carolinians,” Rachel Hunt stated in a heartfelt news release, referring to her father as “my beloved daddy and hero.”
Known for his progressive yet business-friendly approach, Hunt was a formidable figure in North Carolina’s government and played a significant role in the national education reform dialogue from the late 20th century into the early 21st century. First elected governor in 1976, he became the state’s first governor to serve consecutive four-year terms after a constitutional amendment.
Despite a high-profile defeat in the 1984 U.S. Senate race against Republican Jesse Helms, Hunt made a political comeback, securing a third gubernatorial term in 1992 and winning reelection in 1996.
Hunt remained active in Democratic politics after leaving office in 2001, particularly as he watched protégés such as current Gov. Roy Cooper and former U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan achieve higher office. He campaigned for President Barack Obama in 2012 and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Cooper in 2016.
“I can think of no one who shaped North Carolina’s recent successes as much as Governor Jim Hunt,” current Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said Thursday. And Cooper called Hunt the “greatest Governor in North Carolina history.”
Even entering his 80s, Hunt urged Republicans to fund “big things” for public education, rather than pass more income tax cuts.
“I’m proud of what we’ve done together,” Hunt said in a May 2017 interview. “We’ve made huge progress. But I’m far from satisfied about where we are and determined to keep doing my little bit, I guess, to help us keep changing things and improving things in North Carolina. And I know you do it mainly through education.”
Relentless on public schools
Hunt concentrated relentlessly on public schools, talking about the connection between education achievement and competing in the world economy. In the 1970s, while lieutenant governor, he worked with Republican Gov. Jim Holshouser to make North Carolina the first state with full-day kindergarten.
In the 1980s, he helped create the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and pressed for standardized testing for public school students nationwide so that states could compare themselves.
Returning as governor in the 1990s, he championed the Smart Start early childhood initiative, viewed as a national model to prepare children for school, and higher teacher pay. And after the end of his career in office, the Durham-based Hunt Institute trains up and coming political stars nationwide about public education policy.
“If there is one person that is responsible for remaking and reforming education in the nation, particularly in the Southeast and starting with North Carolina, it is Jim Hunt,” former Democratic Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes said in a 2009 interview. “We will feel the effect of Jim Hunt’s leadership for generations to come.”
Hunt was an unabashed lobbyist for his programs and initiatives, often making late-night phone calls to lawmakers to persuade them. If that failed, he would enlist key constituents in a legislator’s district to bombard with them calls all weekend.
“He really had a way of pushing you to do things you never thought you could do,” said Gary Pearce, a longtime Hunt staffer and later biographer. “He made you feel like that you were genuinely making the world a better place.”
Quick rise in North Carolina politics
James Baxter Hunt Jr. was born May 16, 1937, in Greensboro, North Carolina. He grew up on the family’s tobacco and dairy farm in Wilson County. After law school graduation, Hunt, his wife, Carolyn, and their young children lived in Nepal for two years while working for the Ford Foundation.
Hunt rose quickly in Democratic politics, serving as president of the state’s Young Democrats in 1968 and getting elected lieutenant governor four years later.
In a controversial move during his first term as governor, Hunt commuted the sentences of nine Black men and one white woman convicted of the 1971 firebombing of a Wilmington grocery store during days of violence that included the shooting of a Black teenager by police. Key witnesses in the case had recanted their testimony. Full pardons for the “Wilmington 10” didn’t come until 2012.
After loss to Helms, a rebirth and return to governor
His second four-year term closed with his political battle with Helms, the conservative firebrand known as “Senator No” for his opposition to civil rights, gay rights, abortion and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Hunt lost as Helms’ campaign blistered him with ads portraying Hunt as a flip-flopper on the issues.
A defeated Hunt returned to practicing law but remained in public life. His comeback to state politics in the early 1990s helped delay the growing Republican tide in North Carolina politics.
Even GOP leaders begrudgingly were impressed with Hunt’s ability to tack with changing political winds. In the mid-1990s, he called a special legislative session to get tough on crime and proposed tax cuts larger than what Republicans initially offered.
Rachel Hunt served in the legislature and was elected lieutenant governor in 2024. Jim Hunt was on hand at the Legislative Building in January 2025 when she took as a duty of lieutenant governor the gavel as Senate president, following in her father’s footsteps 52 years later.
Memorial information for Hunt will be announced later.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
