Democrats are preparing to ramp up efforts to tie Republicans up and down the ballot in North Carolina to Mark Robinson following a report that the GOP gubernatorial candidate made inflammatory comments on the message board of a pornography website.
National and state Democratic groups were already making Robinson the centerpiece of their strategy in down-ballot races in the state amid an expanding list of incendiary remarks he’s made over the years. But the fallout from CNN’s latest report has only added fuel to that fire.
Outside of North Carolina’s importance at the presidential and gubernatorial levels, Democrats are also aiming to win enough legislative seats to eliminate the supermajority that Republicans in the state Legislature have enjoyed for much of the last two years.
Republicans have used that power to override vetoes from outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on conservative legislation dealing with abortion, election and LGBTQ policy.
While there is no path for Democrats to flip the state House or Senate in North Carolina this year, they need to just flip one seat in either chamber to break up the GOP’s supermajority, which would serve as a major boon to Democrat Josh Stein if he goes on to defeat Robinson in the governor’s race.
“The good news is that the overall electoral environment — with Kamala Harris on the upswing — and now with these revelations about Robinson, is such that there are numerous paths to breaking the Republican supermajority, especially in the suburban districts around the state, in both chambers,” said Vicky Hausman, the co-CEO of Forward Majority, a Democratic super PAC focused on state legislatures.
Last week, Forward Majority announced that it had upped its spending plans on legislative races this cycle to $45 million from $35 million. Specific allocations are yet to be finalized, Hausman said, but she added that North Carolina is “going to be a big part of the expanded investment plans.”
Hausman also said the new investments will raise the profile of the state legislative races in North Carolina, which haven’t received much attention.
A Republican operative in the state who was granted anonymity to speak candidly cast doubt on whether additional efforts to tie Robinson’s rhetoric to legislative candidates would pay further dividends, pointing to the fact that Democrats have for months been employing that strategy.
“They were already doing this in districts and swing districts through mail and TV. So, you know, it kind of remains to be seen whether more of it would really have any sort of added impact,” the operative said. “They’ve already been trying to tie legislative candidates to Robinson for months. So honestly, there’s no real change, unless it’s like, you know, can they really tie him more to them?”
Meanwhile, officials at The States Project — a Democratic-aligned group that plans to spend at least $70 million on state legislative races in nine states this cycle — said Robinson’s latest comments could lead to an increased investment in North Carolina.
“We are doubling down,” Simone Leiro, a spokesperson for the group, said when asked whether Robinson’s latest comments would impact their efforts in North Carolina. Leiro said Robinson’s latest comments amounted to a “big change in being able to identify so clearly to voters exactly what is on the ballot.”
“The message from voters has been consistent: Extremism is not what they want to see in their representatives, but nevertheless, North Carolina House Republicans have refused to denounce Mark Robinson, proving just how extreme they really are,” Leiro said.
Officials at the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which has pledged to spend $60 million on state legislative races this cycle including in North Carolina, pointed out that their endorsed candidates have already tied their Republican opponents to Robinson.
And while the latest Robinson revelations are perhaps uniquely offensive, officials with the group said, they don’t change the overall calculus of the group’s strategy in the state.
“Our state legislative candidates have already been running on kind of the dangers of having someone like Mark Robinson in office. Nothing is going to change on that front — it is going to continue,” said Will Rusche, a DLCC spokesperson. “His comments have definitely been something that our campaigns are keeping front and center, and will continue to do.”
For their part, national Democrats wasted no time seizing on the latest Robinson news. The Democratic National Committee unveiled new ads linking him to former President Donald Trump just a day after the CNN report.
Other Democrats said emphasizing the latest remarks in ads, direct mail and other campaign literature would be a helpful device to keep Republicans home on election day — which could benefit Democrats up and down the ballot.
A Democratic operative in North Carolina predicted the latest Robinson bombshell would be used as a vehicle to attempt to depress Republican turnout while also “amping up” Democrats.
“The thought is that this development further stifles Republicans who already felt down about their candidates,” the operative said.
The operative also cautioned that it remains too early to evaluate what will happen as a result.
“We are still waiting to see what Trump does, and what other Republican candidates in the state do — there could still be a conservative movement to defend him … or run away,” the operative said, referring to Robinson.
NBC News reported Friday that Trump has no plans to pull his endorsement of Robinson. But Robinson will not be attending a Trump rally planned for Saturday in Wilmington, N.C., according to a person familiar with the planning of the event.
The Trump campaign released a statement Thursday afternoon saying that “the former president “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country” and that “North Carolina is a vital part of that plan.” But notably, the statement did not mention Robinson.
Several Republican lawmakers have criticized Robinson over the comments, but none called on him to exit the race. The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement Thursday night, accusing “the Left” of “trying to demonize him via personal attacks.”
In a video posted to X on Thursday, Robinson denied the allegations made in the CNN report.
That report said Robinson, in posts to a pornographic website called Nude Africa, called himself a “black NAZI,” expressed support for bringing back slavery, and recounted sexually graphic stories, including one about his memory of “peeping” on women in gym showers when he was 14. The posts were made under the username “minisoldr” from 2008 to 2012, CNN reported, before Robinson, who was elected lieutenant governor in 2020, entered politics.
A spokesperson for the Robinson campaign didn’t respond to questions from NBC News Friday about the impact the candidate’s latest comments might have on other North Carolina races.
No Republican legislative candidates in North Carolina had publicly denounced Robinson after the CNN report as of late Friday afternoon.
Responding to questions about why that was, the Republican operative in the state who was granted anonymity to speak candidly said that, “the highest priority for us has always been ensuring President Trump wins and ensuring that our candidates have the resources broadly, and that includes winning the attorney general’s race for the first time in 125 years, and maintaining control of the appellate courts and super majorities in the General Assembly.”
The operative didn’t mention the governor’s race.
An official with the Republican State Leadership Committee, which has pledged to raise and spend $50 million in state legislative races this cycle, didn’t respond to questions Friday.
The group, however, appeared to recently remove Robinson from a webpage detailing members of its “Right Leaders Network,” one of its flagship programs. (Robinson was listed as one of the chairs of the council as recently as Monday, but his name and picture were gone from the page on Friday).
An official with the Republican Governors Association also didn’t respond to questions from NBC News Friday.
Despite the muted GOP support for Robinson, most Democrats are refusing to presume any notion of success in the state, where margins in the last several gubernatorial and presidential races have been razor-thin.
“We can’t take anything for granted,” said Sam Newton, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association.
“We already knew he was unfit — he has used violent and dangerous rhetoric so many times before,” Newton said about Robinson. “We must keep our feet on the gas.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
