Lieutenant Gov. Mark Robinson is still in the governor’s race, despite pressure to drop out after a scandal broke Thursday involving the Republican nominee.
His decision runs the risk of harming other Republican candidates on the North Carolina ballot, including former president Donald Trump, and others further own the ballot.
Robinson is currently serving as North Carolina’s lieutenant governor. Robinson is running against several other candidates: Democrat Attorney General Josh Stein, Green Party Wayne Turner, Libertarian Mike Ross and Constitution Party Vinny Smith.
In recent polls, Robinson was losing to Stein by between five and nine percentage points.
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CNN reported on uncovered comments on a pornography website allegedly posted by Robinson between 2008 and 2012, before he entered politics.
In these posts, Robinson called himself a “perv” and a “Black Nazi,” made slurs directed toward Jews, Muslims and members of the LGBTQ+ community, admitted to fantasizing about peeping on women in public gym showers at 14, and said “some people need to be slaves.”
Other posts were not included in the reporting due to their sexual and graphic nature.
CNN connected Robinson with the user posting these comments, “minisoldr,” in several ways. The username on the Nude Africa website matched Robinson’s profiles on other social media sites, including Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Disqus and BlackPlanet.
Personal details included on those profiles, like age, race, location and the year the user got married, matched Mark Robinson. Many of the profiles used the same private email address. The ‘minisoldr’ users and Robinson, on his public social media profiles, often mentioned the same topics and used similar turns of phrase.
Carolina Journal published an article hinting at the bombshell story from CNN early Thursday.
Robinson responds
Robinson denied the claims Thursday in a video posted on social media, calling them “salacious tabloid lies.”
This is not the first time Robinson has been involved in controversy. He is still under investigation for alleged campaign finance violations from his campaign for lieutenant governor in 2020. He has separately denied the Holocaust in Facebook posts.
Candidates had until the day before military and overseas absentee ballots are sent out to withdraw from a statewide race. Since those ballots went out today, Robinson had until midnight Thursday to withdraw.
But when midnight struck, Robinson remained. If he had withdrawn, his name would have stayed on the ballot and any votes cast for him would have been counted for a replacement, who could have been chosen by the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee.
Around 8 p.m. Thursday, the North Carolina Republican Party released a statement supporting Robinson.
“Mark Robinson has categorically denied the allegations made by CNN but that won’t stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks,” the statement said.
“The Left needs this election to be a personality contest, not a policy contest because if voters are focused on policy, Republicans win on Election Day.”
Despite the official remarks, some individual Republicans appeared to distance themselves from Robinson by deleting photos and other content including Robinson from their social media profiles.
Robinson did not appear with Republican vice president nominee Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, at a Raleigh campaign stop Thursday, and he will not share the stage with Trump at a Wilmington stop Saturday.
North Carolina Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, who is not currently seeking re-election, seemed to admit defeat over the matter in a social media post on X:
“It was a tough day, but we must stay focused on the races we can win. We have to make sure President Trump wins NC and support the outstanding GOP candidates running for key NCGA and judicial races. If Harris takes NC, she takes the White House. We can’t let that happen.”
Meanwhile, Democrats were already working to tie Robinson to former president Trump by sharing photos of the pair together and past comments by Trump praising Robinson.
When we’ve got to choose
The scandal involving Robinson may have an effect on other races on the ballot.
Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper said it could tip the scales toward Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in North Carolina.
“In 2020, we had a Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court race that came down to 401 votes statewide,” Cooper said.
“So margins matter in North Carolina, and it is very possible that these allegations could have marginal effects, which could flip 16 electoral college votes towards the Democratic Party.”
The news could depress Republican turnout, by hurting the party brand, Cooper explained. That could not only hurt Trump, but also a host of statewide and local races with Republicans on the ballot.
Democrats will work hard to ensure that voters who aren’t tuned into daily politics hear about Robinson’s alleged comments before Election Day, and they may be the group whose decision whether or not to vote, or who to vote for, is most impacted by the news, he said.
“Turnout matters,” Cooper said. “The job of the Republicans is going to be to make sure that their voters turn out to vote in the same numbers, and hope that they put Robinson in his own box and continue to support the Republican Party brand elsewhere.”
Robinson had two Republican primary challengers, Dale Folwell and Bill Graham. Robinson defeated them handily after securing a Trump endorsement. If Robinson had dropped out, they would have been among the potential choices to replace him.
Primary elections have the lowest turnout of the electoral process, but arguably the largest impact, Cooper said. Typically, more partisan voters show up during primary elections, selecting the options a broader, more moderate swath of voters choose between in the general elections.
“There is an alternate universe out there somewhere where Bill Graham or Dale Folwell has a comfortable lead over Josh Stein right now,” Cooper said.
“But it’s because of the primary process and the lack of control the party establishment has over the primary process that we end up getting candidates like Mark Robinson.”
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