North Carolina voters have once again given its governor’s mansion to a Democrat, electing the attorney general, Josh Stein, over the embattled lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, in a race defined by the extreme rhetoric and controversies surrounding the Republican candidate.
Stein’s victory gives North Carolina its first Jewish governor. It also marks a repudiation of Robinson, the divisive figure who drew attention for stunning public comments about women, the LGBTQ+ community and racial minorities both before and during his time in office, Stein said.
“Tonight, we came together to resoundingly embrace a vision that is optimistic, forward-looking, and welcoming,” Stein said on X. “I couldn’t have done this without each of you.”
Stein’s campaign focused on his record combating opioids as attorney general, his commitment to abortion rights, preventing Republican legislators from exercising unchecked power, and not being Robinson.
At his election watch party, Robinson said: “It’s not about the lies. It’s not about the half-truths. It’s about the people who believe in you … I stand here strong and proud – glad to have run a race that was upright and decent.”
Republican leaders and financial donors largely abandoned Robinson after a CNN investigative report linked him to an online persona in which he described himself as a “black NAZI!”, extolled the virtues of chattel slavery and engaged in grotesque sexual commentary on a pornographic chat board. Robinson denied that the “minisoldr” profile was his, and has filed suit against CNN and others linked to the story.
But the CNN report was only the loudest in a line of controversies that dogged Robinson throughout the campaign. Robinson has, among many other inflammatory comments, referred to homosexuality and transgender identity as “filth”, suggested he would support returning to a time when women did not have the right to vote, and mocked survivors of the Parkland school shooting, calling them “spoiled little bastards”.
Speaking at Lake church in the eastern North Carolina town of White Lake on the Fourth of July, Robinson said “some folks need killing” while describing his posture toward people he perceives as America’s enemies, an assortment in his speech that ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “socialists” and “communists”, a term he regularly assigns to Democrats.
Donald Trump had endorsed Robinson, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids” at a rally in March. By October, as observers speculated whether Robinson’s political toxicity could cost Republicans the state in the presidential race, Trump had barred him from appearing together in public. Asked if he would withdraw his endorsement, Trump said: “I’m not familiar with the race. I haven’t seen it.”
Though North Carolina’s legislature has a Republican supermajority and a majority of its statewide elected officials are Republicans, Robinson never held a polling lead and lost by the widest margin of any Republican candidate for the office in 20 years. A final tally has not yet been posted, but Robinson ran significantly behind Trump in votes, an indication that Republican swing voters abandoned him.
Robinson joins a long line of failed Republican campaigns in what remains a fundamentally conservative state. In the past 32 years, only two Republicans have won the governorship: Pat McCrory, who served from 2013 to 2017, and Jim Martin, who served from 1985 to 1993. The current governor, Roy Cooper, a Democrat, is term limited.
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