Yesterday, the North Carolina gubernatorial race went as good for the Democrats as it could have: the GOP’s worst possible candidate, MAGA loon Mark Robinson, threw his hat into the ring, as expected. He still has to face a more mainstream conservative— State Treasurer Dale Folwell-- and possibly ex-Congressman Mark Walker, but Robinson will be heavily favored to win the primary… and to possibly lose the general. Far right extremists like MAGAt Congressman Dan Bishop have already lined up behind Robinson, who is anti-Choice, anti-science, anti- Semitic, anti-LGBTQ, anti-education, anti-IRS and pro-gun— perfect for a GOP primary, less perfect for moderates and swing voters. And he’s a conspiracy nut.
If he wins the primary— nearly a foregone conclusion— he’ll face Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein. In his 3 minute announcement video in January, Stein was already focusing on Robinson. “Robinson wants to tell you who you can marry, when you’ll be pregnant and who you should hate.” Watch:
The statement from the state Democratic Party yesterday noted that “Mark Robinson is an extremist who has built a legacy of division by spewing hate toward the LGBTQ community, disrespecting women, putting culture wars ahead of classrooms, and pushing to ban abortion with no exceptions. We need a Governor who will expand opportunities for working families and uphold our fundamental rights— not a dangerous politician whose reckless policies would kill jobs and threaten North Carolinians’ future.”
Yesterday, Politico predicted that Robinson will “saddle the GOP with a laundry list of his past public controversies— from agreeing with antisemitic remarks about the global economy to homophobic musings that children shouldn’t learn about ‘homosexuality or any of that filth.’ In a state where surveys show a majority of voters favor keeping abortion legal, he has compared the procedure to murder. And even some Republicans in North Carolina see him as a liability."
“Because of his comments, he will nationalize the gubernatorial race in North Carolina for the Democrats, which will open the door for them in raising tens of millions of dollars across the country,” said Paul Shumaker, a Republican consultant in the state.
But as he launches his campaign in rural Alamance County, Robinson will need to do what many high-profile, controversial Republicans failed to accomplish in last year’s midterms— overcome his past comments that could be deeply unpopular with general election voters.
It is a critical test for the GOP in the post-Trump era, after a slate of problematic nominees cost Republicans a number of winnable governor and U.S. Senate races in 2022.
The opportunity for Republicans in North Carolina is enormous. Democrats haven’t won a presidential or U.S. Senate race there since 2008. And with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper leaving office— a candidate who won twice as Donald Trump took the state in both 2016 and 2020— Tarheel Democrats are staring down an election without their best candidate in a generation.
Robinson will be boosted by an existing small-dollar fundraising operation and a flurry of earned media on conservative platforms, where he has raised his profile in recent years. And he’ll have the backing of fiery grassroots supporters that dominate the GOP base in North Carolina. None of the negative headlines have so far stopped his meteoric rise in state politics, riding a viral video of him giving public comment about gun rights at a city council meeting in 2018 to being elected to the state’s second-highest office a little over two years later. And even after in-state media uncovered a past comment by Robinson— a staunch abortion opponent— that he and his wife had terminated a pregnancy decades ago, his standing remained virtually unchanged, Raleigh’s WRAL found in a survey.
…If he wins the primary, Robinson’s traits will be contrasted with the mild-mannered persona of Stein, a Dartmouth and Harvard-educated lawyer who has served two terms as the state’s top prosecutor. But it’s one that Democrats eagerly embrace.
“You couldn’t have a bigger contrast between these two candidates,” said Morgan Jackson, a Democratic strategist who advises both Cooper and Stein. “Mark Robinsion is the most far-right extreme candidate who has ever run in the history of North Carolina.”
The race comes at a dire moment for the Democratic Party in North Carolina.
The state was supposed to be the swing state of the future for Democrats, after then-candidate Barack Obama won a squeaker in 2008 and Kay Hagan won an open Senate seat by over 8 points that year. But Democrats have not won a statewide federal race since then— losing a string of close Senate and presidential contests that have thrown into question the true tossup nature of the state.
Democrats have fared far better on the statewide level. Republicans have won just one governor race in the last 30 years, and there has been a single Republican attorney general in the last century. Even so, Cooper, the most successful Democrat in North Carolina in any recent history, is term-limited out. And Republicans hold supermajorities in both state legislative chambers.
“This could be the culmination of 15 years of [Republican] work, in the sense of a consolidation of power by any means,” said Democratic state House Minority Leader Robert Reives.
The highly gerrymandered state legislature is completely controlled by the Republicans. They have 30 seats in the Senate, compared to just 20 for the Democrats and 72 in the House compared to the Democrats’ 48. They have the ability to override gubernatorial vetoes. In 2020, Trump managed to win the state’s 15 electoral votes, albeit narrowly— 2,758,775 (49.9%) to 2,684,292 (48.59%). On the same day, Cooper bested Republican Dan Forest 2,834,790 (51.5%) to 2,586,605 (47.0%) and Stein beat Republican Jim O’Neill 2,713,400 (50.1%) to 2,699,778 (49.9%).