Democrats are preparing to step up their efforts to tie North Carolina Republicans to Mark Robinson after reports emerged that the Republican candidate for governor made inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board.
National and state Democratic groups have already made Robinson the centerpiece of their strategy at the state’s lower polls amid a growing list of inflammatory comments he has made over the years. But the fallout from CNN’s latest report has only added fuel to the fire.
In addition to North Carolina’s importance at the presidential and gubernatorial levels, Democrats are also aiming to win enough seats in the legislature to eliminate the supermajority that Republicans have held in the state legislature for the past two years.
Republicans have used that power to override vetoes by outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on conservative legislation related to abortion, elections and LGBTQ policies.
While Democrats have no chance of winning either the House or Senate in North Carolina this year, they only need to pick up one seat in each chamber to break the GOP’s supermajority. That would give Democrat Josh Stein a big advantage if he beats Robinson in the race for governor.
“The good news is that the overall electoral climate — with Kamala Harris on the rise — and now with these revelations about Robinson, is such that there are numerous paths to break the Republican supermajority, particularly in the suburban districts across the state, in both chambers,” said Vicky Hausman, the co-CEO of Forward Majority, a Democratic super PAC focused on state lawmakers.
Last week, Forward Majority announced that it had increased its spending plans for legislative elections this cycle from $35 million to $45 million. Specific allocations have yet to be finalized, Hausman said, but she added that North Carolina “will be a big part of the comprehensive investment plans.”
Hausman also said the new investments will increase the visibility of North Carolina’s legislative elections, which have not received much attention thus far.
A Republican official in the state, who spoke on condition of anonymity and spoke candidly, expressed doubt that further efforts to tie Robinson’s rhetoric to legislative candidates would yield any further benefits, pointing out that Democrats have been using that strategy for months.
“They’ve already done this in districts and swing districts through mail and TV. So, you know, it’s questionable whether more of this would really have an additional impact,” the agent said. “They’ve been trying to tie legislative candidates to Robinson for months. So frankly, there’s no real change unless it’s, you know, can they really tie him more to them?”
Meanwhile, officials with The States Project, a Democratic-leaning group that plans to spend at least $70 million on legislative elections in nine states this cycle, said Robinson’s latest comments could lead to a bigger investment in North Carolina.
“We’re doubling down,” said Simone Leiro, a spokesperson for the group, when asked if Robinson’s latest comments would affect their efforts in North Carolina. Leiro said Robinson’s latest comments amounted to a “big change in being able to identify so clearly to voters what exactly is on the ballot.”
“The message from voters is consistent: extremism is not what they want to see in their representatives, but despite this, Republicans in the North Carolina House of Representatives have refused to convict Mark Robinson, proving just how extreme they really are,” Leiro said.
Officials with the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which has pledged to spend $60 million on state legislature elections this cycle, including in North Carolina, pointed out that their endorsed candidates have already linked their Republican opponents to Robinson.
And while Robinson’s latest revelations may be uniquely offensive, they don’t change the group’s overall strategy in the state, according to group officials.
“Our candidates for state legislature have already complained a little bit about the dangers of having someone like Mark Robinson in office. Nothing is going to change on that front — it’s going to continue,” said Will Rusche, a spokesman for DLCC. “His comments are absolutely something that our campaigns are making central and they will continue to do so.”
National Democrats, for their part, wasted no time in seizing on the latest Robinson news. The Democratic National Committee unveiled new ads linking him to former President Donald Trump just a day after the CNN report.
Other Democrats said highlighting the latest comments in ads, direct mail and other campaign materials would be a useful tool to keep Republicans home on Election Day — which could benefit Democrats at all levels of the ballot.
A Democratic operative in North Carolina predicted that Robinson’s latest bomb would be used as a means to depress Republican turnout while “energizing” Democrats.
“The idea is that this development will further weaken Republicans, who already felt bad about their candidates,” the aide said.
The officer also warned that it is too early to judge what will happen as a result.
“We’re still waiting to see what Trump does, and what other Republican candidates in the state do — there could still be a conservative movement that either defends him … or runs away from him,” the agent said, referring to Robinson.
NBC News reported Friday that Trump has no plans to withdraw his endorsement of Robinson. But Robinson will not attend a Trump rally scheduled for Saturday in Wilmington, N.C., according to a person familiar with the event’s planning.
Trump’s campaign released a statement Thursday afternoon saying that the former president “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country” and that “North Carolina is a vital part of that plan.” But the statement did not mention Robinson, notably.
Several Republican lawmakers have criticized Robinson for the comments, but none have called on him to drop out of the race. The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement Thursday night, accusing “the left” of “attempting to demonize him through personal attacks.”
In a video posted to X on Thursday, Robinson denied the allegations in the CNN report.
That report said that Robinson referred to himself as a “black Nazi” in posts on a pornography website called Nude Africa, expressed support for the return of slavery and told sexually explicit stories, including one about his memory of “peeping” on women in the gym showers when he was 14. The posts were made under the username “minisoldr” from 2008 to 2012, CNN reported, before Robinson, who was elected lieutenant governor in 2020, entered politics.
A spokesman for Robinson’s campaign did not respond to questions from NBC News on Friday about the potential impact of the candidate’s latest comments on other elections in North Carolina.
As of Friday afternoon, no Republican candidate for North Carolina Congress had publicly condemned Robinson following the CNN report.
In response to questions about why, the Republican state official, who spoke on condition of anonymity and spoke candidly, said that “the top priority for us has always been to make sure that President Trump wins and that our candidates have the resources they need, and that includes winning the race for attorney general for the first time in 125 years, and maintaining control of the appellate courts and supermajorities in the General Assembly.”
The agent did not mention the governor’s race.
An official with the Republican State Leadership Committee, which has pledged to raise and spend $50 million on state legislative elections this cycle, did not respond to questions Friday.
However, the group appears to have recently removed Robinson from a webpage that lists members of the “Right Leaders Network,” one of the group’s main programs. (Robinson was listed as one of the council’s chairmen on Monday, but his name and photo were gone from the page on Friday.)
An official with the Republican Governors Association also did not respond to questions from NBC News on Friday.
Despite Robinson’s weak GOP support, most Democrats refuse to count on any success in the state, as margins in recent gubernatorial and presidential elections have been razor-thin.
“We can’t take anything for granted,” said Sam Newton, spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association.
“We already knew he was unfit — he’s used violent and dangerous rhetoric so many times,” Newton said of Robinson. “We need to keep our feet on the gas.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
