COLFAX, N.C. – North Carolina conservatives who gathered recently over coffee and pancakes at the Olympic Family Restaurant to support Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson knew about some of the controversial things he has said previously, but they were inclined to be forgiving.
“He’s a good speaker. He made some mistakes in his past,” said Allan Jones, a 59-year-old truck driver, at the campaign event near his home in Colfax, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of Raleigh. “Haven’t we all? Did we learn from them? Let’s go forward.”
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Robinson, a favorite of former President Donald Trump, is the party's nominee for governor in the November election. He is looking to succeed term-limited Democrat Roy Cooper in a state that has voted for Trump twice and has backed Republicans for the presidency all but once since 1980. Robinson is popular for his working-class history and a blunt speaking style that at times resembles Trump’s.
But Robinson also has a history of inflammatory comments that his opponent, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, has said makes him too extreme to lead North Carolina. It raises the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson could hurt Trump's chances to win a state he cannot afford to lose to Democrat Kamala Harris.
On a Facebook post in 2019, Robinson said 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 church, he used the word “filth” when discussing gay and transgender people.
Democrats led by Cooper, a top surrogate for Harris, have tried to make the case that North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes are ripe to win. Trump’s 1.3 percentage point victory in North Carolina over Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was the narrowest for Trump. Cooper argues that Republican candidates with views closely linked to Trump — Robinson and state schools superintendent candidate Michele Morrow among them — could turn out people who otherwise would not have voted for Democrats.
Stein, after a campaign event last month at Wilber's Barbecue in Goldsboro, said he did not know whether such views by those candidates would affect the presidential race but he thought they could be on voters' minds.
“These are not normal people or candidates, and I think it’s going to have a big impact on the way voters look at the Democratic Party in our state and the Republican Party in this light,” he said.
There are no public signs that Trump is distancing himself from Robinson, who appeared on the stage for Trump’s recent 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 memo this week from a pollster arguing that Robinson has been faring better than the two previous GOP nominees for governor.
“Reverse coattails or other Democratic fever dreams are not real, particularly in a presidential election cycle,” state Republican Party spokesperson Matt Mercer said. “What is real is the electoral strength of Donald J. Trump in North Carolina.”
Stein and his allies have been successful so far in defining Robinson in the closely divided state. Robinson’s views on abortion have been front and center, and Democrats have used a stockpile of footage from Robinson’s social media posts in their television commercials and videos.
Data from AdImpact, which monitors campaign spending, show that Stein has outspent Robinson by more than a 3-to-1 margin since the March primaries, an edge that would widen based on spots reserved between now and the fall general election.
“Mark Robinson is the chief spokesperson for the Josh Stein attack campaign,” said Paul Shumaker, a veteran GOP consultant whose clients included a candidate who lost to Robinson in the primary.
Robinson also has received bad press for his family’s businesses, including a nonprofit run by his wife that state regulators found had numerous problems in administering a child nutrition program.
Robinson says his past words have been twisted by others and he blames the “weaponization” of state government for the attack on his wife’s business. He remains optimistic entering the final two months of the race.
“Certainly when you look at a poll, you may get dismayed by some numbers,” Robinson told reporters outside the Olympic restaurant. “But we’re not looking at numbers, we're looking at people and we’re going after votes. And we know we can still win this race.”
Experts say concern about a candidate whose views are seen as extreme can hurt enthusiasm among the party faithful.
“Trouble and dissension down ballot can have an effect on party turnout, which can influence 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 North Carolina Republicans could vote for Harris and Stein “to send a message to the GOP.”
Trump endorsed Robinson before the primary, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids," in reference to the civil rights leader, for his speaking ability. Robinson would be North Carolina’s first Black governor if elected.
Morrow, the schools superintendent candidate, attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally in Washington before the attack on the U.S. Capitol, suggested at the time that the military could keep Trump in office and has called public schools liberal “indoctrination centers.”
Robinson has pushed back on the abortion issue and gone on offense. He has released economic and public safety platforms and is running a commercial accusing Stein of failing to address rising crime and violence. Robinson began running an ad last month in which he appears to accept the state’s current 12-week ban on most abortions enacted by the Republican-dominated General Assembly last year. The ad also revealed to a broader audience a previous disclosure about his wife’s abortion decades ago.
Robinson described to a table of restaurant patrons this past week how he supports an abortion ban after roughly six weeks of pregnancy, but that the 12-week limit won out at the legislature.
“As an elected official, I have a personal opinion, but also as an elected official, I have to go along with what’s called consensus,” Robinson told reporters afterward as he began a statewide campaign tour. Stein’s campaign alleges that Robinson would seek a total abortion ban with no exceptions if elected.
Shumaker, the Republican consultant, said polling shows Stein is performing better than Robinson among independent voters. One unaffiliated voter, Richard Morgan, 68, attended the Colfax event and votes Republican. He said he has told Robinson that he needs to sharpen his abortion commercial to highlight his support for women.
As for Robinson's past controversial comments, Morgan said he gives Robinson “the benefit of the doubt that he’s a changed man because everybody else does for other candidates” who say things they regret later.
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 has heard that Robinson has said are “horrible.” She said she has voted for Republicans before and believes some of them hold the same values she does, but that does not seem to be the case this year.
“Because a lot of them are falling in line with Trump," Hess said, "they’re kind of giving up on 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.