Stein, boosted by conservatives, carries wider lead against Robinson in race for NC governor, WRAL News Poll shows

Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein holds a commanding lead over Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson in North Carolina’s gubernatorial race less than two months before the November, according to a new WRAL News Poll that shows Stein making gains with women, conservatives and rural voters.

Overall, 51% of likely November voters support Stein and 37% support Robinson, with 11% undecided, according to the WRAL News Poll of 676 likely voters, which was released Tuesday. The gap has widened significantly since March, when the previous WRAL News Poll showed Stein with a 44%-to-42% lead over Robinson.

The latest poll, conducted in partnership with independent pollster SurveyUSA between Sept. 4 and Sept. 7, reported a credibility interval of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. A credibility interval is similar to a margin of error but takes into account more factors and is considered by some pollsters to be a more accurate measurement of statistical certainty.

Polls have consistently shown Stein leading the race, with his lead varying between 4 and 14 percentage points. Prior to the WRAL News Poll, a survey by High Point University also showed Stein with a 14-point lead.

The WRAL poll found Stein leading with men and women, young and moderate voters. He has also picked up support among conservatives since March. Twenty percent of conservative voters supported Stein in the latest WRAL poll, up from 14% in the March poll.

Stein is also outperforming other Democratic candidates when it comes to conservative supporters: Twelve percent of conservative voters support Democratic state superintendent candidate Mo Green, while Democratic attorney general candidate Jeff Jackson had 14% support among likely voters who identified as conservative. It was also slightly better than Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who had 19% support from conservative North Carolina voters.

North Carolina voters often split their tickets. In recent years, the state has tilted in favor of a Republican presidential candidate and a Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

While 90% of Harris voters say they plan to vote for Stein, 77% of Trump voters say they’ll vote for Robinson. Eleven percent of Trump supporters say they’ll vote for Stein in the gubernatorial race.

Robinson’s support among conservative voters could be hurt by positions that might be too conservative for some moderates, said David McLennan, a political scientist at Meredith College in Raleigh. M

ore respondents said they have an unfavorable view of Robinson (40%) than those who had a favorable opinion of him (35%). The opposite was true for Stein. About 28% of voters had an unfavorable view of Stein and 39% had a favorable opinion of him.

“Robinson’s extremism on issues and many personal issues make him a ‘bridge too far’ for some conservatives, even in a highly polarized environment,” McLennan said.

‘A gender gap’

The latest poll showed Stein widening his lead in the suburbs and pulling even with Robinson in rural areas. In the March survey, half of rural voters planned to vote for Robinson and 34% supported Stein. The latest poll showed the two deadlocked at 45% with rural voters.

Robinson leads Stein with rural men, but he trails by 10 points among rural women.

It’s unusual for a Democrat to lead with rural women, said Jessica Taylor, an editor for the Cook Political Report. Rural areas tend to support Republicans. In the presidential race, for instance, the WRAL polls found that former president Donald Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris by 10 points among rural women.

“There's a gender gap that I think is very much opening up in this governor's race,” Taylor said. “But when you see the things that Democrats have on video in Mark Robinson's own words that they have the money to put behind, I think that is what is turning off women regardless of where you live in the state of North Carolina.”

For weeks, Stein’s campaign has been airing an ad featuring videos of Robinson saying: “For me, there’s no compromise on abortion.” The ad also features a video clip of Robinson saying: “Abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers. It's about killing the child because you weren't responsible enough to keep your skirt down."

Such positions could turn off moderate suburban voters, who have been crucial to statewide candidates in this battleground state, political analysts say.

Over time, Robinson has attempted to moderate his tone on abortion. He paid for the woman who became his wife to have an abortion in 1989 — an event that has shaped his anti-abortion views. He called the procedure murder as recently as 2021. He has also said he opposes exceptions to to the law for issues such as rape or incest — “It makes no difference to me why or how that child ended up in that womb,” he said in one speech featured in Stein’s ad.

Robinson now supports those exceptions and has recently said he supported a ban after six weeks, rather than a full ban. In a campaign ad released last month, Robinson said he supports the current law, which bans most abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy and extends the cutoff to 20 weeks in cases of rape or incest. The ad doesn’t say whether he would support further restrictions if elected.

At a Sept. 3 campaign event in Troy, Robinson told supporters that he’d prefer to tighten the state’s law. “I would love to get down to six weeks. And I’d like to get down to zero. I would like to push it back as far as we could and eliminate as many abortions as we can,” Robinson said, according to NBC News.

The WRAL News Poll found fewer North Carolina voters opposed to a six-week ban than in March. Support for the idea remained the same: 43% said they supported a six-week ban in both polls. However, the September poll represented a 5-point decrease in opponents, to 39% from 44% in March. More people said they were unsure about the issue.

Robinson’s statements

Robinson has also faced criticism from both sides of the aisle for comments he’s made about women, LGBTQ people and the Jewish community. Twelve percent of likely Stein voters said such rhetoric prompted them to change who they’d back in the race.

Forty-two percent of women voters said they had an unfavorable view of Robinson, and 7% of women voters said Robinson’s statements would make them less likely to vote for him, according to the latest poll. By comparison, 23% percent of women had an unfavorable opinion of Stein.

In 2022, Robinson told a church congregation that “We are called to be led by men,” adding that God sent “Daddy Moses” to lead the Israelites — “Not Momma Moses.” In his book, Robinson wrote that “I have found that women in general don’t like to be out-talked.” He added: “They love to be able to talk a man into submission. And with me, it never happens. They can’t do it.”

Robinson has made multiple controversial remarks about gay and transgender people. In 2021, video emerged of Robinson telling a church congregation that no one should teach children in classrooms about “transgenderism, homosexuality – any of that filth.”

In a 2017 Facebook post, he said: “There is a reason the liberal media fills the airwaves with programs about the Nazi and the "6 million Jews" they murdered.” In a 2018 post, Robinson said: “This foolishness about Hitler disarming millions of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.”

Robinson may have more support than the poll indicates, said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. In the 2020 governor’s race, multiple polls showed Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper leading Republican Dan Forest by 10 percentage points or more. Ultimately, Cooper won by 4.5 points.

“These folks may come home to roost. They may decide in the end that they want to vote for Mark Robinson against Josh Stein,” said Cooper, the professor. “But at least right now, it looks like that Republican vote is actually softer than we would expect.”

Criticism of Stein

Results show some of the Republican criticism of Stein appears to be coming up short.

Upon taking office, Stein didn’t appeal a court’s opinion that North Carolina’s old voter ID law was unconstitutional. Then last year, Planned Parenthood sued North Carolina lawmakers for banning most abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy. Stein refused to defend the law because he agreed with the plaintiff’s legal complaint of the law being unconstitutional — which gave Republicans more ammunition.

The poll asked voters about Stein's refusal to defend those laws passed by Republican lawmakers. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said that made them more supportive of Stein, while 24% said those decisions made them less supportive of Stein. Five percent of Robinson supporters said those Stein decisions prompted them to support someone else.