Lt. Gov. Robinson '95 percent sure' he's running for governor

North Carolina's controversial lieutenant governor calls a 2024 run for governor the next logical step.

Posted 7:47 p.m. Oct 28, 2021 — Updated 3:09 a.m. Oct 29, 2021

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is "95 percent sure" he'll run for governor in 2024, he said on a conference call this week.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper cannot seek re-election after his second term in office ends in 2024.

Robinson, often under fire for repeated homophobic comments and other insults, is popular in the North Carolina Republican Party and is in the first year of his first elected office.

He's also North Carolina's first Black lieutenant governor.

He beat eight other candidates last year in the Republican primary of the lieutenant governor's race, including seasoned politicians. He contemplated a U.S. Senate run earlier this year and, ever since he took a pass, has been an assumed gubernatorial candidate – and potentially the Republican front runner – in 2024.

In a call Right Wing Watch reported Thursday afternoon, Robinson called a gubernatorial campaign a "logical step."

"We’re in the vein right now of gearing up for that," Robinson told E.W. Bishop, a frequent right-wing Republican candidate in Virginia, as well as a minister.

"We haven’t announced, but we’re about 95 percent sure that that’s the direction that we’re going in," Robinson said in a snippet of the call posted by Right Wing Watch, which monitors conservative politicians and groups.

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