North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein won the state’s gubernatorial race, according to multiple news networks — a predictable outcome after support for his opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, bottomed out in the aftermath of a CNN report detailing his past racist and sexually explicit comments.
Multiple Republican governors withdrew their endorsements of Robinson in the days after CNN published the article, which detailed racist, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ+ comments he had posted on a porn forum. Those comments — compounded with earlier reporting about his personal habits — were the breaking point for many former supporters of the candidate, who initially endorsed him despite other previous controversies, like his support of a hypothetical no-exceptions abortion ban and the disparaging comments he had made toward the Civil Rights Movement.
All the controversies lost him significant support from staunch conservatives who supported Republicans on other parts of the ballot, Morgan Jackson, a strategist and adviser to Stein’s campaign, told NOTUS.
“What we see, what we hear from Republican voters, especially Republican women that are pro-life and pro-Trump is they can’t support Mark Robinson. It’s not because of abortions, because he demeans and disrespects women,” Jackson said.
Trending
The playing field wasn’t always that dire for the lieutenant governor, though. He shored up support from right-wing politicians in his state and nationally ahead of March’s primary, with former President Donald Trump going so far as to liken Robinson to “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
North Carolina Democrats, meanwhile, boosted him in the primary because they believed he would be beatable in the general.
Support from much of Robinson’s own party didn’t hold as the scandals piled up.
North Carolina Republicans tried to break — or cover up — their ties with Robinson in the aftermath of the CNN report. Democrats tried to tie him even tighter to his party, highlighting Robinson’s connections to Republicans in other races, including Trump.
Trump himself didn’t withdraw his endorsement and told a reporter on Sept. 26 that he “[didn’t] know the situation” when asked about Robinson’s scandal.
But continued support from the former president wasn’t enough to carry Robinson to victory on Tuesday night. Nor was Robinson’s denial of everything to do with the controversy.
“Let me reassure you, the things that you will see in that story — those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he said in a video on the social media platform X hours before the piece was published.
Robinson’s performance on Tuesday was much different than in 2020, when he secured the state’s lieutenant governor’s office with more than 51% of the vote.
That win came two years after Robinson first rose to fame for a speech in front of the Greensboro City Council, where he decried attempts to roll back gun rights after a high school shooting in Florida.
Tuesday’s outcome wasn’t purely because of the loss of support for Robinson, though — Jackson also chalked it up to Stein, who massively outraised Robinson, being proactive when it came to campaigning on reducing violent crime and working with law enforcement, among other issues.
“What that does is it makes you a different kind of Democrat. When Democrats talk about crime, it’s a values signal to voters, because a lot of Democrats don’t talk about crime,” Jackson said. “It opens you up to voters that other Democrats often don’t have access to and … allows you to do better in red North Carolina, that’s largely rural North Carolina.”
This year’s gubernatorial race was further complicated by the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which left several counties — most of which Trump won in 2020 and are solidly Republican — in western North Carolina with major flooding. Election boards in North Carolina made changes to make voting more accessible amid damage from the storm.
The state’s response to the hurricane became a flashpoint late in the race.
Robinson was the only state leader in North Carolina who refused to vote on Gov. Roy Cooper’s state of emergency declaration ahead of the storm. And in the days following the floods, he said Stein and other Democrats were “playing politics.”
As hopes for a Robinson win declined in the party, the election became about “saving the rest of the statewide races minus the gubernatorial,” Sarah Reidy-Jones, a GOP strategist in North Carolina, told NOTUS.
Republicans in the state had expressed worries that Robinson’s scandals would hurt downballot Republican candidates.
But Reidy-Jones added that she doesn’t think Robinson’s loss — or the fact that he was the party’s candidate in the first place — will negatively impact state Republicans in the long run. It’s just a sign that “people need to pay more attention when they vet candidates,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s going to affect the party. … Primaries vet the candidates, the party doesn’t. And I do think the party is going to continue to be strong,” she said.
—
Shifra Dayak is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Author
