North Carolina voters have given the governor’s mansion again to a Democrat, choosing Attorney General Josh Stein over embattled Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson in a race defined by the extreme rhetoric and controversy surrounding Republican candidate.
Stein’s victory gives North Carolina its first Jewish governor. It also marks a repudiation of Robinson, the divisive figure who drew attention for stunning public comments about women, the LGBTQ+ community and racial minorities both before and during his time in office, Stein said.
Stein’s campaign focused on his record fighting opioids as attorney general, his commitment to abortion rights, preventing Republican lawmakers from wielding unchecked power, and not being Robinson.
Republican leaders and financial donors largely abandoned Robinson after a CNN investigative report linked him to an online persona in which he described himself as a “black NAZI!”, extolled the virtues of slavery and engaged in grotesque sexual commentary on a pornographic chat board. Robinson denied that the “minisoldr” profile was his and has filed suit against CNN and others connected to the story.
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But the CNN report was just the loudest in a series of controversies that dogged Robinson throughout the campaign. Robinson has, among many other inflammatory comments, called homosexuality and transgender identity “filth,” suggested he would support a return to a time when women did not have the right to vote, and mocked survivors of the Parkland school shooting by calling them “spoiled little bastards”.
During a speech at Lake Church in the eastern North Carolina town of White Lake on July 4, Robinson said that “some people need to be killed” as he described his attitude toward people he considers America’s enemies, a variation in his speech, which ranged from “people who have evil intentions” to “socialists” and “communists,” a term he regularly attributes to Democrats.
Donald Trump had endorsed Robinson, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids” at a rally in March. In October, as observers speculated whether Robinson’s political toxicity could cost Republicans the state in the presidential race, Trump had banned him from appearing together in public. Asked if he would withdraw his endorsement, Trump said: “I’m not familiar with the race. I didn’t see it.”
Although the North Carolina legislature has a Republican supermajority and the majority of statewide elected officials are Republicans, Robinson has never had an edge in the polls and lost by the largest margin to any Republican candidate in two decades . No final figure has been released yet, but Robinson trailed Trump significantly in terms of votes, an indication that Republican voters were abandoning him.
Robinson joins a long line of failed Republican campaigns in what remains a fundamentally conservative state. In the past 32 years, only two Republicans have won the governorship: Pat McCrory, who served from 2013 to 2017, and Jim Martin, who served from 1985 to 1993. The current governor, Roy Cooper, a Democrat, is term-limited.
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