Robinson's financial woes surface again in GOP primary. Will NC voters care?
In 2012, Kermit Robinson’s life was turning upside down. His wife, Margaret, was on her death bed with cancer. And his tenants in a middle-class Greensboro home quit paying their rent — causing him to lose not only money but also time, dealing with the legal proceedings.
He ended up getting his tenants evicted after they never showed up to the court hearing, public records show. And a decade later he says they’ve still never paid him the roughly $2,000 in question.
In some ways it’s an ordinary tale of hardships many North Carolinians have experienced, from one side or the other. But in one big way, it’s not ordinary at all: Those former tenants could be North Carolina’s next governor and first lady.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a leading Republican candidate for governor, has been open about some of his past financial struggles — which include criminal convictions for writing bad checks, plus multiple bankruptcies and liens for tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes, rent and car payments. Some of those debts have been paid.
"We the people of North Carolina need someone who understands us," Robinson said when he kicked off his campaign for governor. "We don't need another politician who's spent their life climbing the political ladder. We need a public servant, someone who's actually lived through the struggles of everyday North Carolinians. I know what it's like to grow up poor."
While Robinson is hoping his own hard times make him more relatable to some voters, he’s also not struggling anymore. He has earned more than $350,000 from his taxpayer-funded salary since taking office in 2021. His political supporters have also given millions to his campaign — money Robinson and his wife Yolanda Hill have reported using in the past to buy thousands of dollars’ worth of new clothing.
“Everybody goes through hard times at some point,” Kermit Robinson told WRAL News in an interview. “The quality of a person is — once they’ve gone through that — do they try to rectify their situation.”
Kermit Robinson, who is not related to the lieutenant governor, said he’s not going public now just to try to get paid, or for partisan political motives. The 84-year-old has been a Democrat since he first registered to vote 63 years ago, but he says these days he considers himself a “Democrat in name only” and votes for Republicans if he thinks they’re the best candidate. Most important to him, he said, is that voters know about Mark Robinson’s history.
When Mark Robinson's family was evicted in 2012, court records show, the judge only ordered them to get out — not to also repay the money. Kermit Robinson acknowledged he could have pursued the back rent further in court. But he said it would’ve taken even more time and, in his experience as a landlord, is usually a waste of time. His wife died a few weeks later, and he was distracted by that as well.
Mark Robinson’s communications director told WRAL it’s not Robinson's fault his landlord didn’t do what he needed to do to get a court order for the money. “The court did not order for [Kermit Robinson] to recover any rent or damages,” campaign spokesman Mike Lonergan said in an email. “There is a legal process for that and the landlord did not pursue it within the statute of limitations.”
The party of fiscal responsibility?
An emerging theme of the GOP primary race — or at least, among those hoping to beat Mark Robinson — is fiscal responsibility.
State Treasurer Dale Folwell, also a GOP candidate, has pointed to his years of managing the state’s finances as one of his top qualifying reasons he thinks he should win the nomination. He’s now second in fundraising, behind Robinson, after loaning $1 million of his personal money to his campaign. He said Robinson’s $2,000 debt to his landlord may seem small but it could be part of a bigger pattern of getting by on someone else’s dime. Folwell plans to hammer that message home in his own campaign for the Republican nomination.
“North Carolina is the best state for business right now, and I think the voters want to hand the keys to this car to someone who can improve on our standing,” he said.
Former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker is another GOP gubernatorial candidate who, like Folwell, trails Robinson in fundraising and polling. Walker has also sought to highlight Robinson’s financial history in an effort to convince his party that he has a better chance than Robinson at beating a Democrat in the general election next year.
North Carolina has had only one Republican governor in the past 30 years. Attorney General Josh Stein is the only Democrat to announce a campaign for governor so far.
Walker recently riled up some of his conservative supporters with an inflammatory tweet aimed at Robinson, after Robinson criticized Stein’s campaign for being scammed out of $50,000 earlier this year. Walker wrote that Robinson “knows a scam job when he sees one,” citing Robinson’s past financial problems and other legal woes, accusing him of “spending 25 years cheating people.”
Lonergan, Robinson's spokesman, dismissed criticism of Robinson's past: “It is unfortunate that it is being rehashed by Mark Walker’s flailing campaign in a desperate attempt to boost his dismal numbers."
Many of Walker’s fellow Republicans were also upset over that tweet, telling him not to bash Robinson. But Walker said if he doesn’t attack Robinson for it now, Stein or another Democrat will make it an issue in the general election — unless GOP voters pick another candidate for governor without the same financial baggage.
“They say it’s all in the past,” Walker said of the Republicans angry that he highlighted Robinson’s legal history. “But would you rather learn about it now, or after the primary?”
Robinson has filed for bankruptcy protection at least four times — three times personally and once for a business. He also has a record of other financial troubles leading to criminal and civil actions against him.
Robinson recently said he cleared up his financial issues, telling WRAL last year in an interview that he didn’t have any unpaid taxes. He was then presented with documents indicating he owed Guilford County property taxes from various unpaid bills between 2006 and 2018. It surprised Robinson, who said his wife typically handles their taxes.
“When you start talking about taxes, if I’m the guy doing them, somebody's going to jail,” he said. He settled those debts shortly after being informed of them by WRAL.
For Robinson’s critics among the fiscally conservative crowd, his personal financial record is troubling — even if polling shows many GOP voters support Robinson regardless.
Dean Painter, a wealthy Raleigh businessman who has given tens of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates over the years, has declined to help finance Robinson’s campaign.
“You’ve got to have somebody who knows how to manage money running the state,” said Painter, who has since hosted a fundraiser for Walker.
Do voters care?
In many ways, Robinson’s multiple bankruptcies and brash speaking style — unafraid of offending political opponents, LGBTQ people, Jews, Muslims, the Chinese and other targets of his rhetoric — make him very similar to Donald Trump, who appears to be headed to his third straight GOP nomination for president.
The two have publicly backed one another’s campaigns, with Trump telling the North Carolina Republican Party at its annual convention in June that Robinson is “one of the great stars in politics.”
Political scientist Michael Bitzer said Trump is proof that the sorts of things that would’ve ended someone’s political career just a decade ago no longer matter to many voters.
Trump has now been indicted in four separate criminal investigations, Bitzer said, but enjoys so much support in the GOP he is leading the polls for the next presidential nomination by far.
“The same Republican base will look at Mark Robinson and potentially not be concerned about it at all,” said Bitzer, a professor at Catawba College who specializes in North Carolina politics.
Robinson’s captivating public speaking skills and unapologetic rhetoric have won him strong support among the GOP base. Yet some party insiders have said those same traits could also hurt his chances to win the general election and become governor.
Politics have become much more partisan than even just 20 years ago, Bitzer added, with many voters committed to voting for their party’s nominee no matter what. But even though swing voters are getting more and more rare, they still matter in a state like North Carolina — where Trump only won by 1% of the vote in 2020, and where the election for governor as recently as 2016 came down to just a few thousand votes out of the millions cast.
“Those folks are who decide elections in North Carolina,” Bitzer said of the state’s undecided voters, noting that in recent years the number of people deciding against joining a specific political party has grown.
Robinson’s Republican critics also know they have an uphill battle to get a more traditional, experienced candidate in office. Robinson has only won one political race — the lieutenant governor’s race in 2020, but he maintains massive levels of support among pro-gun activists and evangelical Christians, two key parts of the GOP base.
In June the conservative think tank John Locke Foundation polled likely Republican primary voters and found 43% supported Robinson, compared to 9% for Walker and 4% for Folwell. Robinson has money on his side, too, having raised millions from supporters nationwide.
At least two other men, former state Senator Andy Wells and retired health care executive Jesse Thomas, have entered the race since that poll was conducted. Wells came in second to Robinson in the 2020 primary for lieutenant governor, despite spending about five times as much money as Robinson. And this time around it seems Robinson enjoys the fundraising edge, too, and not just his grassroots support.
