Will NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson's past rhetoric boost or doom his 2024 campaign?

His candidacy has political insiders wondering: Will the same qualities that make him so beloved by conservative activists also cause him to lose the general election?

“That’s probably the biggest question,” said Chris Cooper, an expert on state politics who teaches at Western Carolina University. Just because North Carolina is a swing state, he said, doesn’t necessarily mean voters want middle-of-the-road politicians.

“The irony in North Carolina politics is, it is a purple state,” Cooper said. “But that doesn't mean that everybody's moderate. You've got a lot of folks on the far left, and a lot of folks on the far right. It just averages out to moderate.”

Robinson’s brand of politics is closer to former President Donald Trump’s than any other North Carolina politician.

Both are compelling speakers who focus heavily on fears of an America in decline. They zero in on hot-button issues such as guns, abortion and gender, and both have dabbled in conspiracy theories. Both get their strongest support from the Christian right. And — in what may be the key to their popularity — both are seen as political outsiders, who aren’t just shaking up the political establishment but are having fun doing it.

“The establishment is scared because I can’t be controlled,” Robinson told voters Saturday to loud cheers.

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Trump may have lost other swing states in 2020, but he won North Carolina for the second time. Republicans believe Robinson can tap into that same coalition of voters in 2024.

“They just want someone who's going to stick it to the man,” said Jonathan Felts, a longtime GOP operative in North Carolina who helped run Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Budd’s successful 2022 campaign. “They want someone who's not going to back down from a fight."

Robinson isn’t the only Republican running for governor. Others in the mix appear to think there’s a play for Tar Heel State voters who are perhaps turned off by the bombast brought by Robinson.

“Voters like candidates who attack problems, not people,” Republican State Treasurer Dale Folwell, said in an interview when he announced his candidacy last month. Several others are rumored to be considering a run, including former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker.

Walker said in a text message to WRAL that people are asking him to run, but he's still thinking and praying about it.

“I appreciate everyone’s support, and I understand their desire to nominate a Republican who can hold up under the scrutiny a candidate for governor will undergo,” he wrote.

Some in the party have raised questions about whether Robinson’s aggressively anti-gay views will turn off key undecided voters. Political observers, including several GOP insiders, say there's not really much of a question which direction their party’s base wants to go.

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“The short answer is that Robinson's going to win the primary,” Felts said. “The longer answer is Dale Folwell's a great public servant, but I just don't see a pathway for him to be able to get his message out there."

Public records show that as of the end of 2022, Folwell had $47,000 in his campaign account. Robinson had $2.2 million. And cash is critical in a statewide election.

Money doesn’t just buy advertising and yard signs. It can cover the cost of campaign staff, pay for people to go knock on doors and fund other components of a well oiled campaign machine.

Folwell called himself the “best governor money can't buy” in a tweet during Robinson’s rally.

Personal connections are also a big part of politics. And that’s one area where Folwell and Walker, if he enters the race, have a years-long head start on Robinson.

When Republicans took back control of the legislature in 2010, Folwell was a state lawmaker from Winston-Salem with a reputation as one of the most conservative people on Jones Street. The GOP picked Thom Tillis to be the new N.C. House leader. And Tillis, who’s now in the U.S. Senate, picked Folwell as his top deputy.

More than a decade later, Folwell still enjoys friendly relationships with many state legislators. He was back at the General Assembly last week, promoting a bill to crack down on hospitals sending people into collections for their medical debts. Talking with reporters after a committee meeting, state Sen. Joyce Krawiec — an influential Republican lawmaker — joked that she almost tripped up and called him “Governor Folwell,” not “Treasurer Folwell.”

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Some of the policies Folwell pushes, such as the debt collection bill, have bipartisan support. But his efforts could prove politically dangerous. While Robinson and Folwell both have strong populist messages, only Folwell’s brand of populism has involved picking fights with hospitals and the health insurance industry. Those wealthy business interests have the ability to spend large amounts of money in the primary if Folwell makes it a close race.

Folwell is working to portray himself as a champion of working folks. He’s spent much of his time as treasurer winning solid support from the State Employees Association of North Carolina, through policies such as keeping health insurance cheap for state workers even as premiums have spiked in the private sector. And he often brags on the status of North Carolina’s pension plan, one of the strongest in the country.

He said he comes by his everyman persona honestly.

“From the age of 10, I’ve been breaking a sweat to get myself out of my economic situation,” Folwell said in an interview last week. “And now, as a public servant, to protect and work on saving lives, minds and money. And when you’ve been breaking a sweat all your life you know where people sweat, and you know why they sweat.”

Although Folwell is in charge of investing billions of dollars on behalf of the state, he could just as easily be working in a motorcycle repair shop, Felts said. That sort of authenticity is exactly what GOP voters want, he added.

"Both these men are self made men,” Felts said. “Both have faced challenges that working families have faced and can relate to. The difference is Mark Robinson is one of the most gifted communicators I have ever seen. … And his message really resonates with GOP voters."

Cooper’s own electoral history shows that a Democrat can beat a Republican for governor by painting the Republican as too extreme, particularly on social issues. He told reporters Friday, before Robinson’s announcement, that that’s exactly what Robinson is.

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“His campaign is all about igniting right wing culture wars that we have seen hurt people and our economy,” the governor said of Robinson. “And he's wrong for North Carolina.”

In 2012 when Pat McCrory became the first Republican to win an election for governor since the 1980s, he ran as a pro-business candidate who didn’t really jump into debates on social issues. He was a classic suburban, country-club Republican — and the former mayor of Charlotte, the state’s biggest city.

But then a bill seen as discriminatory against transgender people emerged. McCrory became a staunch defender of the law, which was known by its bill number, HB2. The backlash to it caused companies to spurn the state and take expansions elsewhere, plus a bevvy of unflattering national headlines. It all happened in 2016 as McCrory was running for reelection.

Cooper beat him by focusing heavily on HB2 and has been governor ever since.

That 2016 race was close; only 10,000 votes separated Cooper and McCrory after a recount. But in 2020 Cooper easily defeated Republican Dan Forest, who is far to McCrory’s right on social issues.

Forest, who was lieutenant governor at the time, focused much of his own campaign on opposition to COVID-19 mandates like mask requirements and business closures. He did worse than any other statewide GOP candidate in 2020, losing by nearly 5 percentage points — even as Trump carried the state in the presidential election.

Robinson isn’t much like Forest or McCrory, but he’s closer to Forest. His base of support comes from religious social conservatives rather than the business establishment, and it appears that he plans to focus his 2024 campaign on the same issue that didn’t work for Forest: Opposition to COVID-19 rules.

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“We have a governor who has locked us down in this state, who has caused many businesses to lose their livelihoods,” state Sen. Danny Britt, a Lumberton Republican, said in a speech Saturday endorsing Robinson. “Mark Robinson will stand up and fight for those individuals. Mark Robinson would not serve as a dictator and king.”

One difference between the campaigns of Robinson and Forest is that Forest was running in 2020 as the pandemic was still raging. Now a few years removed, Robinson hopes people are less sympathetic to the restrictions at the time.

But perhaps the biggest difference between Robinson and Forest: Their speaking skills.

“I don’t think there’s any danger of Mark Robinson becoming Dan Forest,” Chris Cooper, the Western Carolina political scientist, said. “He doesn’t have 'boring' in him. Folks on the left don’t like to admit it but he's a compelling speaker. [They] might not like his message, but he's really good at delivering it."

But the lesson of HB2 still rings true, the professor said, adding that Robinson will have to at least tone down his rhetoric if he wants to have a shot at becoming governor, and not just winning the GOP primary. “You can't mock gay people and get elected,” he said.

At the same time, political insiders say, Trump proved that voters are more willing to accept gaffes, controversies and outbursts that once would’ve doomed politicians.

“Ten years ago it might’ve been a problem,” Felts said. “But it's a completely different environment. ... Nowadays people want excitement.”