The most important governor’s race of 2024 is about to have its own version of Trump
The Republicans are preparing to nominate Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson. Mark Robinson is a candidate who has been shaped in Donald Trump’s likeness.
Mark Robinson was able to get his start thanks to the former President Donald Trump.
Robinson, who is running in the GOP primary for governor of North Carolina on Tuesday, has done everything that makes someone a toxic candidate for a general election: He called homosexuality filth, made antisemitic comments about Hollywood controlling Blacks, and expressed retrograde attitudes about women.
He’s on track to win the Republican nomination and, in the process, he could force the Democrats out of power at the state level in one of America’s most important swing states.
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Robinson’s victory is likely to be the latest in a long and unarrested rise in politics. From a furniture maker who made a viral defense of gun rights in a city hall meeting in 2018, he was elected lieutenant-governor just two years later.
If he wins the nomination, he will be in a direct collision with the state’s Attorney General Josh Stein for the most important and most expensive governor’s race this year. In recent polls, Robinson and Stein are virtually tied in a hypothetical matchup for the general election. If Robinson wins in November, all three branches in North Carolina would be under Republican control in a state which was once considered the future foothold of Democrats in the South.
Both President Joe Biden, and Trump have indicated that they will heavily target the state. It had the largest margin of any state Trump won.
Robinson is an engaging and bombastic orator. He has been compared to Trump for his rapid rise in politics, his devotion from the GOP base, and the long list of scandals which have followed both men. Robinson’s public controversy ranges from agreeing to antisemitic comments about the global economic system to comparing abortion-seeking women to murderers.
The Democrats practically beg for the opportunity to bring up this history in the general election. They hope it will sink Robinson. Republican primary voters seem to be uninterested.
Robinson faced off against a number of notable opponents to win the GOP nomination. Dale Folwell, the state treasurer, entered the race early but was unable to gather the resources necessary to be competitive. Mark Walker, a former congressman, was briefly in the race before he dropped out in order to try and win a seat in Congress. Bill Graham is the most prominent candidate. He’s a self funded attorney who has invested millions in his campaign. Thom Tillis, the senior senator of North Carolina, has also backed him.
All three made the same argument against Robinson – electability. Robinson’s controversy, they said would be a burden in November, and ruin the party’s chance to gain complete control.
Tillis told POLITICO in a short interview that “he’s going have a lot trouble.” Tillis said that his criticism was not personal but that “you can expect the Democratic Governors Association to use every single page of opposition research against the lieutenant-governor.”
According to AdImpact, Graham’s campaign spent nearly $5 million on advertising — the most significant amount of advertising from either candidate so far. Nearly $1.2 million was spent on negative ads that vilified Robinson.
“Mark Robinson? Mark Robinson? He downplayed Nazis. In one of Graham’s ads, Graham refers to a Jewish Insider report last year that unearthed old social media posts. One ad highlights Robinson’s comments at a church, that Christians “are called to be led by women” and not men.
Robinson called his social-media posts “poorly phrased”, but added that “there is no antisemitism here” and that women can be good leaders. His allies and he have dismissed the argument about electability, saying that his critics don’t really understand the modern GOP.
Jonathan Felts is a GOP operative and super PAC leader who has been a GOP operative for many years. He said, “If you were writing a script, trying to create a character, that would be perfect for where politics will be in 2024, it’s hard to find anything else than Mark Robinson.”
He said that the critics of Robinson within the Republican Party are those who “passionately yearn for the good old times when the Republican Party used to be the Chamber of Commerce Party.”
A majority of Republican voters seem to be siding with Robinson. In a poll conducted by East Carolina University in mid-February, Robinson received 53 percent of the vote for the Republican primary. Graham was at 13 percent and Falwell was at 7 percent.
Dallas Woodhouse said that some of the ads attacking Mark are similar to the ones the Democrats will run. “That may not work well in a Republican primaries.”
Robinson has also not been obstructed by the state’s GOP elite, except for Tillis. Some prominent Republicans, including Sen. Ted Budd (R-GA) and Phil Berger (R-GA), endorsed Robinson’s campaign. Most others remained on the sidelines.
Trump’s own presence is also a factor in the primary. Trump, who has been praising Robinson for several months, officially endorsed him on Saturday at a rally held in the state, calling him “Martin Luther King, on steroids.”
Robinson, as his path towards the nomination cleared, has sometimes appeared to move away from social issues which will be the fodder for attacks ads. He began his CPAC speech last month with a discussion of North Carolina’s budget surplus, which he attributed to Republicans.
Robinson is aware that he will be subject to media scrutiny.
He told the CPAC audience, “I could give a 25 minute speech. 24 minutes would be about what I’ve just said.” “I can say in 30 seconds why men shouldn’t compete in women’s sport, or that men should use their own bathroom instead of the women’s, and then guess what article the leftist media will write the next day?”
Stein, the state’s Attorney General, also seems to be on a smooth path to nomination. However, he is facing a credible challenge by former State Supreme Court Justice Michael Morgan. Outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper, other prominent Democrats and Stein have all endorsed Morgan. The ECU poll showed Stein at 57 to 7 percent.
Morgan Jackson, senior advisor to Stein and Cooper, said that he was elected Attorney General twice – both times Trump won. It showed his ability win and navigate difficult election cycles.
Both parties anticipate that the November election between Robinson and Stein will be extremely competitive
