Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson stepped into a Beaufort County diner at lunch Thursday in need of some sustenance. It was less so for his appetite, and more for his political campaign that’s short on cash and, according to some political analysts, in danger of alienating moderate Republicans — so much so that they think it could hurt former President Donald Trump’s chances of winning the state.
More than 100 supporters of the Republican Party’s nominee for governor crowded into Shep’s Grill to greet the candidate, cheering as Robinson made his entrance, lining up as he shook hands, snapped photos and signed merchandise. One woman asked Robinson about past statements of his she had seen highlighted by his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Stein. Robinson told her not to pay any attention to his past comments, claiming his words had been taken out of context by his critics.
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As Robinson watches his polling numbers lag behind Trump — despite Trump’s endorsement, and with barely two months left until the election — Robinson needs something to rejuvenate his campaign.
He’s hoping to find that help in the GOP base, which could help fend off criticism of Robinson’s past divisive statements on abortion, Jewish people, LGBTQ people and others. An early ad from Stein’s campaign hammered Robinson on abortion by replaying Robinson’s own speeches. More recently, another Stein ad has highlighted the complaints and state investigations into a child care center Robinson used to help run with his wife.
“My opponent wants to talk about what I said on Facebook 10 years ago,” Robinson told the crowd. “They want to make up lies about some of the best times of our life, like our daycare center, which we were extremely proud of.”
Political analysts and insiders say Robinson’s lag in recent polls might cast doubt on his ability to win the gubernatorial race, and could hurt Trump’s odds of carrying the state in the presidential race. A Democratic victory in North Carolina would significantly help Vice President Kamala Harris become the next president due to North Carolina’s large number of Electoral College votes.
As multiple recent polls have shown Harris building a lead over Trump in North Carolina, some Republicans are starting to blame Robinson. Polling from Bloomburg/Morning Consult showed Trump leading Joe Biden in North Carolina by 8 percentage points in May. But Trump only led Harris by 1 point in July. Its most recent August poll of North Carolina found Harris now leading Trump by 1 percentage point.
“Trump is being weighed down by a very unpopular Republican candidate for governor,” Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff, told News Nation on Aug. 17.
“So Trump is going to have some difficulty in this state, in North Carolina, that he may not have in others,” Mulvaney said.
Robinson rejected Mulvaney’s analysis in an interview Thursday outside the restaurant.
“I don't believe that at all,” he told WRAL. “When you put your ear to the ground and you hear what's going on — you see most of the people that are in here right now? What was the gear that they had on? Mark Robinson, Donald Trump. We're arm-in-arm.”
Polling doesn’t necessarily back up that confidence, however. One in every six Republican voters in North Carolina plan to be ticket-splitters this year in North Carolina, voting for one party for president but the other party for governor, according to a new Elon University poll this week. Only about one in 20 Democratic voters plan to do the same.
That same poll offered a potential explanation: One of Robinson’s most-known platforms is his opposition to abortion; he supports banning it after six weeks of pregnancy. The Elon poll found that even most Republicans in North Carolina view that as going too far, as do nearly all Democrats and independent voters. And Trump himself this week criticized Florida’s six-week abortion ban, as he seeks to appear more moderate on the issue himself.
"I think the six-week (ban) is too short, there has to be more time," Trump said.
Steve Kornaki, national political correspondent for NBC News, said Democrats in North Carolina clearly see attacking Robinson as a strategy — although he noted that while Robinson's polling isn't great, he could still win if Trump does well.
"Democrats say they hope that there’s an issue there with an unpopular Republican gubernatorial candidate sort of making the entire Republican ticket, the Republican brand in the state, less appealing," he said. "Particularly, maybe, in these suburban areas where Democrats are trying to squeeze more and more of these votes out. And honestly, I think the Republicans are simply hoping that Trump is able to carry the state and, ultimately, that maybe lifts Robinson up a little bit."
National Democrats eyeing NC
Polls released this month show Stein widening his lead over Robinson in the gubernatorial race. Some polls show Stein leading by 10 percentage points or more — margins that would stand out from recent election results.
Robinson’s best performance recently came in an Emerson College poll that found Trump leading Harris by 1 percentage point, and Stein leading Robinson by 6 points. In 2020 and 2016, the gubernatorial race was decided by less than 5 percentage points.
After this article was published, Robinson campaign spokesman Mike Lonergan told WRAL that GOP nominees for governor in 2016 and 2020 each performed better in the end than some polling had predicted. Both those years a Democrat, Roy Cooper, still won the governor’s race. But each time the Republican candidates did considerably better than some polls had predicted they would, Lonergan said.
National political analysts at the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball announced this week they now believe Stein is favored to win the race. And, perhaps more troubling for Republicans, political strategists on both sides of the aisle believe Robinson’s struggles could hurt Trump’s chances of winning North Carolina.
If both drop in the polls, Trump might consider taking back his endorsement of Robinson, said Doug Heye, former communications director for the Republican National Committee.
“There’s a big concern I’ve heard a lot that Robinson could weigh down Trump, and that Trump could cut him loose,” Heye said.
David Plouffe, a senior advisor for the Harris campaign, told Axios on Aug. 20 that North Carolina is winnable for Harris partly because of Robinson. Plouffe was Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, when Obama became the first and still only Democrat to win North Carolina since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
“Mark Robinson, the gubernatorial candidate, is, you know, even more MAGA than Trump, which is saying something,” Plouffe said. “There's a bunch of people who right now are voting Democrat for governor who aren't yet Democrat for president. So we need to run a campaign to them. Huge opportunity.”
It’s already happening: Former GOP strategist turned “never-Trump” activist Rick Wilson told WRAL this month that his group, The Lincoln Project, is adding North Carolina to its short list of states it will target with messages seeking to convince moderate conservative voters to vote for Democrats as a repudiation of Trump and his MAGA movement. And the Harris campaign also recently launched its own North Carolina chapter of “Republicans for Harris” in an effort to show her willingness to reach across the aisle.
North Carolina voters have a long history of splitting their ticket: supporting a Republican for president while elected a Democrat for governor. It happened in 2020, 2016, 2004, and 2000.
This year, though, Democrats see a unique opportunity to use a lower-level Republican candidate against the presidential nominee.
Robinson’s abortion remarks
Abortion rights have been a top issue for Democrats since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can restrict abortion as much as they want. Many states have enacted tighter abortion laws since then. That includes North Carolina, where Republican state legislators last year enacted a new law banning most abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy.
The recent Elon University poll found a plurality of North Carolina voters see that as too extreme and would prefer less restrictive abortion rules. Robinson’s support of stricter abortion laws is a view shared by only 16% of North Carolina voters, including just 28% of Republican voters, the poll found.
Stein’s campaign is airing an ad featuring videos of Robinson saying, “For me, there’s no compromise on abortion. It makes no difference to me why or how that child ended up in that womb” and 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."
On the campaign trail, Robinson has since switched to trying to talk less about abortion. He has even moderated his messaging, acknowledging in a recent ad that perhaps some past comments came off as harsh but that “I’ve changed my approach.” He’s now focusing on safer issues, recently releasing platforms on his economic and public safety policies. He’s also talking more about education — he accuses public schools of pushing pornography on students — and critiquing Stein as a progressive who’d be bad for the economy if elected governor.
“He's been a terrible attorney general, and he will be a horrendous governor,” Robinson told the diner crowd on Thursday. “We're not going to let that happen, folks.”
Mark Walker, a former Republican congressman from Greensboro who briefly ran against Robinson in this year’s primary for governor — and who now works for the Trump campaign — said in an interview that he’s seen Robinson improving as a candidate. Walker was highly critical of Robinson during the primary. But there’s even more to dislike about Stein, he said, questioning whether GOP voters really will abandon Robinson in the end.
“I would prefer to go for a flawed candidate than a candidate with extreme, flawed ideologies,” Walker said. “... Lt. Gov. Robinson has grown a lot and made great strides in how he shares crucial and truthful information about conservative ideology.”
But while Robinson makes his pitch to 100 voters at a time as he criss-crosses the state from diner to diner, Stein is blanketing the airwaves with ads thanks to fundraising support Robinson has been unable to match. As of the end of June, state records show, Robinson had spent $9.2 million and had $6.6 million left in the bank. Stein had spent $17.3 million and had $16 million left in the bank.
The Harris campaign is likewise outspending Trump in North Carolina by a significant factor. Her campaign hasn’t launched any ads tying Trump to Robinson but they likely will, said Dan Kanninen, the Harris campaign’s battleground state director. Kanninen called Robinson the embodiment of “MAGA extremism” during an Aug. 27 episode of the Pod Save America podcast, hosted by former Obama staffers.
“We’re going to link those two guys,” Kannien said.
“Those politics are just toxic for suburban voters and some of the new residents of that state,” he added.
Teflon Don?
Democratic groups are already attempting to tie Robinson to Republicans down the ballot. Majority Rising, a Democratic political action committee, has been placing Robinson’s photo and comments on mailers attacking Republican legislative candidates.
That may work on candidates that voters aren’t familiar with, said Jessica Taylor, an editor at Cook Political Report, an independent group that describes itself as nonpartisan. But Taylor is skeptical that similar attacks would work on Trump.
“Trump has his own brand, and I think he's been able to sort of be Teflon to some instances,” Taylor said.
Cook Political Report didn’t consider Robinson’s polling woes when it labeled the presidential race a toss-up, Taylor said. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, which is affiliated with the University of Virginia, didn’t either, said J. Miles Coleman, an associate editor for the group.
Down-ballot candidates tend to have little impact on races up the ballot, Coleman said.
“When I first started following national politics in 2008 — with Charlotte as my vantage point — I remember Elizabeth Dole’s Senate campaign flopping,” Coleman said. “Did she contribute to McCain's loss [in North Carolina]? Possibly, but a more obvious explanation to me would be the Obama campaign’s herculean effort in the state that year.”
Trump endorsed Robinson earlier this year and the two often speak on the same stage. However, Robinson had no speaking role at Trump’s most recent North Carolina event, in Asheboro on Aug. 20.
Political analysts who spoke to WRAL said that if Robinson’s polling numbers decline, Trump may attempt to distance himself from Robinson.
“Trump doesn't like to be associated with losers,” Coleman said. “So if he feels Robinson is a liability, I wouldn't be surprised to see less frequent joint appearances.”