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Republicans are starting to wonder if their imploding North Carolina gubernatorial candidate could cost Donald Trump a key swing state, and the presidency along with it.
The collapse of Mark Robinson’s campaign for governor since CNN reported that he called himself a “black NAZI,” among other offensive online comments, is threatening to drag Trump down in a state that most Republicans think the former president has to win this fall. North Carolina is the rare state where voters often split between both parties’ candidates for different offices, but Robinson’s damaged campaign presents a big challenge for the former president.
Most of Trump’s realistic paths to electoral victory over Kamala Harris run through North Carolina. And now the vice president’s campaign is running ads linking Trump and Robinson in a bid to yoke her rival to a beleaguered gubernatorial candidate he’s already endorsed.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he thought Trump still could outdistance Robinson but that he’s still watching the race closely, even as Democratic rival Josh Stein pulls away in the governor contest.
“I don’t see any scenario where President Trump wins the electoral vote without a path through North Carolina. So he should take it seriously.” said Tillis, who doesn’t support Robinson.
Robinson’s top campaign aides have fled as the national party abandoned him since CNN’s report on Thursday. The GOP’s national gubernatorial campaign arm is shutting off its ad buys in support of the embattled Republican, who has denied he made the posts and on Monday threatened to sue CNN.
Yet other Republicans in the state say more bad news could be coming down the pike.
“Everyone anticipates even more stuff coming out. That’s what the word on the street is,” said former North Carolina GOP Gov. Pat McCrory, who lost reelection in 2016 even as Trump won his state.
McCrory added that for Trump’s campaign, “the dilemma is going to be if even more information comes out drip by drip by drip.”
Trump has not rescinded his endorsement of Robinson, though he steered clear of the scandal-plagued gubernatorial hopeful in an appearance over the weekend after keeping his distance for several weeks. Robinson is trailing in many public polls by double digits, a clear warning sign for Trump.
Trump is running neck and neck with Harris in the state, but Republicans do not want to take any chances in the closely divided state. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that if Robinson can’t “give us a credible defense, he’s a political zombie.”
“Trump’s doing well there. The problems and the challenges [Robinson] has, he hasn’t been able to explain,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 GOP leader.
Republicans “do have, at least at the presidential level, a lot riding on it,” Thune added. “And obviously a lot of House races down there too that we’re interested in.”
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North Carolina is one of the last ticket-splitting states, though voters typically divide their partisan preferences at a far lower rate than a winning Trump-Stein ticket would require, according to public polls.
“if the governor’s candidate is unpopular and he’s losing, then it’s going to hurt the whole ticket,” said Carter Wrenn, a longtime GOP strategist in the state. “Whether it will affect Trump at the top of the ballot? I think you have to put a question mark … it could.”
Outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper won two terms during Trump’s foothold in the Tarheel State, and Stein won both his terms as attorney general. Most of those Democratic wins were extremely slim, and Trump’s margins have also been narrow.
This time, Robinson’s plummeting campaign could also skew this year’s North Carolina attorney general race between Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson and GOP Rep. Dan Bishop, not to mention the state’s House campaigns and state legislative races.
GOP state Senate candidate Scott Lassiter urged Robinson to suspend his campaign and lamented that the state party didn’t take action sooner.
“If we see Donald Trump double down with his support and there continues to be additional scandal rocking Robinson’s campaign, that’s where I think it begins to hurt,” Lassiter told Semafor. He said any Republican who reiterates “their support for Lt. Gov. Robinson is taking on a great electoral risk.”
McCrory chalked up Robinson’s rise and fall to nonexistent vetting during the GOP primary and said national GOP Chair Michael Whatley, a former party chair in the state, had “failed” North Carolina Republicans in not warning donors about Robinson’s baggage.
“Trump’s wreaking the havoc of being attached to this guy [Robinson], in which no one’s done serious vetting,” McCrory said.
Notably, Robinson appeared in an ad endorsing now-Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., who defeated McCrory in 2022’s Senate primary. Paul Shumaker, an adviser to top North Carolina Republicans, said the state party’s role is “to remain neutral and ensure a fair primary process.”
“Trump didn’t know about it, I didn’t know about it,” Graham said of Robinson’s past. “If Trump stays on what people in North Carolina care about, the economy … he’ll be just fine. Robinson is just out there.”
Notable
- User data shows closer links between Robinson and the comments that CNN reported on last week, according to Politico.
- The bad headlines for Robinson started weeks ago with a report that he frequented video porn shops in the Greensboro area of the state, The Assembly NC reported.