COLFAX, NC — North Carolina conservatives recently gathered for coffee and pancakes at the Olympic Family Restaurant to show their support for the Republican lieutenant governor. Mark Robinson were aware of some of the controversial things he had said earlier, but were inclined to be forgiving.
“He’s a good speaker. He’s made mistakes in the past,” Allan Jones, a 59-year-old truck driver, said at the campaign event near his home in Colfax, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of Raleigh. “Haven’t we all? Have we learned from this? Let’s move on.”
Robinson, a favorite of the former president Donald Trumpis the party’s candidate for governor in the November election. He hopes to succeed the term-limited Democrat Roy Kuiper in a state that has voted for Trump twice since 1980 and has supported Republicans for president in all but one election. Robinson is popular because of his working-class background and his blunt manner, which at times echoes Trump’s.
But Robinson also has a history of making inflammatory comments his opponent, the Democratic attorney general. Josh Steinhas said he is too extreme to lead North Carolina, raising the possibility that campaigning for Robinson could hurt Trump’s chances of winning a state he can’t afford to lose to Democrats Kamala Harris.
On a Facebook post In 2019, Robinson said that abortion in America was “about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.” In a 2021 speech in a churchhe used the word “filth” when talking about gays and transgenders.
Democrats led by Cooper, a top replacement for Harris, have tried to argue that North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes are ripe for winning. Trump’s 1.3 percentage point victory in North Carolina over Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, Trump was narrowest. Cooper argues that Republican candidates with positions closely aligned with Trump — Robinson and state schools candidate Michele Morrow among them — can mobilize people who otherwise might not have voted Democratic.
Stein said after a campaign rally last month at Wilber’s Barbecue in Goldsboro that he didn’t know whether the positions of these candidates would affect the presidential election, but he thought voters could take them into account.
“These are not normal people or candidates, and I think it will have a profound impact on the way voters in our state view the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in this light,” he said.
There are no public signs that Trump is distancing himself from Robinson, who has recently appeared on stage at Trump’s rallies in the state.
Stein had a lead over Robinson in two polls of North Carolina voters conducted in August. Robinson’s campaign released a pollster memo this week arguing that Robinson has outperformed the two previous GOP candidates for governor.
“Reverse coattails or other Democratic fever dreams are not real, especially not in a presidential election cycle,” said Republican Party spokesman Matt Mercer. “What is real is the electoral strength of Donald J. Trump in North Carolina.”
Stein and his allies have so far succeeded in defining Robinson in the closely divided stateRobinson’s views on abortion have been central, and Democrats have used a trove of footage of Robinson’s social media posts in their television commercials and videos.
Data from AdImpact, which tracks campaign spending, shows that Stein has spent more than three times as much as Robinson since the March primary. That gap could widen based on the number of seats reserved between now and the fall general election.
“Mark Robinson is the primary spokesman for Josh Stein’s attack campaign,” said Paul Shumaker, a veteran GOP consultant whose clients include a candidate who lost to Robinson in the primary.
Robinson has also received bad press for his family’s businesses, including a nonprofit run by his wife that is supervisors found numerous problems when managing a child nutrition program.
Robinson says his past words have been twisted by others and he blames the “weaponization” of the state government for the attack on his wife’s case. He remains optimistic in the final two months of the race.
“Of course, when you look at a poll, you might be upset by some of the numbers,” Robinson told reporters outside the Olympic restaurant. “But we don’t look at numbers, we look at people, and we go after votes. And we know we can still win this race.”
Experts say concerns about a candidate whose views are seen as extreme could damage enthusiasm among party members.
“Difficulties and disagreements at the ballot box can have an effect on party turnout, which can affect the results at the top of the ticket,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. He said moderate Republicans in North Carolina could vote for Harris and Stein “to send a message to the GOP.”
Trump endorsed Robinson in the primary, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids,” referring to the civil rights leader, because of his speaking skills. Robinson would be the first black governor of North Carolina if elected.
Morrow, the school superintendent candidate, attended the January 6, 2021, rally in Washington, before the attack on the US Capitol. At the time, he suggested that the military could keep Trump in office and called public schools liberal “indoctrination centers.”
Robinson has taken a stand on the abortion issue and has gone on the offensive, releasing economic and public safety platforms and running a commercial accusing Stein of failing to address rising crime and violence. Robinson began place an ad last month in which he appears to accept the state’s current 12-week ban on most abortions, which was passed last year by the Republican-dominated General Assembly. The ad was also unveiled to a wider audience an earlier disclosure about his wife’s abortion decades ago.
Robinson told a table of restaurant guests last week that he supports banning abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, but that the Legislature had targeted the 12-week cutoff in the first place.
“As an elected official, I have a personal opinion, but as an elected official, I also have to go with what’s called consensus,” Robinson told reporters afterward as he began a statewide campaign tour. Stein’s campaign claims Robinson would seek a total ban on abortion with no exceptions if elected.
Shumaker, the Republican consultant, said polls show Stein is doing better than Robinson among independent voters. One independent voter, Richard Morgan, 68, who attended the Colfax event and votes Republican, said he told Robinson to sharpen his abortion ad to emphasize his support for women.
As for Robinson’s controversial past statements, Morgan said he gives Robinson “the benefit of the doubt that he’s a changed man, because everyone does that for other candidates” who say things they later regret.
It may be too late to convince other independents.
Susie Hess, 64, a retired social worker who attended the Stein event, said the things she’s heard Robinson say are “horrible.” She said she’s voted Republican in the past and believes some of them share her values, but that doesn’t seem to be the case this year.
“Because many of them are joining Trump,” Hess said, “they are giving up their values.”
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Associated Press polling editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and chief elections analyst Chad Day in Washington contributed to this report.
