Scandalous report threatens GOP bid for N.C. governor

Although North Carolina has not elected a Republican governor since 2012, the GOP started advertising early in the purple state this election cycle with high hopes of reclaiming the governor’s mansion. Now, the party’s hopes of a gubernatorial victory are all but dead.

A CNN report last week accused GOP candidate and current Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of posting several hateful, anti-Semitic, and sexually graphic comments on online forums. CNN said Robinson used the username “minisoldr” on several platforms, including YouTube, Disqus, and Pinterest. He also used the moniker for accounts on pornographic websites and the website Ashley Madison, which caters to married people looking to have affairs, CNN reported. In forums on the pornographic websites, “minisoldr” boasted about engaging in extramarital affairs, including with his wife’s sister, and provided graphic sexual details. The user also reportedly claimed to enjoy watching transgender pornography and labeled himself a “black Nazi.”

“I didn’t describe it as a political earthquake because we get those a lot here in North Carolina,” Michael Bitzer, a politics and history professor at Catawba College, told WORLD. “This felt like an asteroid that truly hit the state. It has left a pretty deep crater.”

The establishment GOP has begun distancing itself from Robinson, leaving North Carolina Republicans with lukewarm support while dreading a Democratic victory.

Robinson has said the allegations are lies and that he has no connection to “minisoldr.” He accused his opponent in the race, Attorney General Josh Stein, and mainstream media of conspiring against him.

“You folks want to focus on tabloid trash,” Robinson said to reporters outside a campaign event on Monday. “Refocus yourself on the issues that matter to people. Thirteen-year-old, sensationalist lies don’t matter.”

In the days following the CNN report, all the “minisoldr” posts were deleted, though the account remains active. A local news outlet, WRAL-TV, reported Robinson declined offers from tech specialists to track down the real account owner, which the Robinson campaign denied.

This is not the first time Robinson has attracted attention for inflammatory comments. In 2017, he wrote in a Facebook post that former first lady Michelle Obama was a man who identified as a woman. In another post, he called black Democrats slaves. In 2017, he expressed doubt that the Holocaust happened, calling it “hogwash” and saying the number of Jews killed was likely exaggerated. Last year, he said his previous comments were “poorly worded” but he fully supports Israel in its war against the terrorist organization Hamas.

Robinson did not attend either of former President Donald Trump’s two appearances in North Carolina this week despite having been a regular face at earlier Trump events. The Republican Governors Association did not renew its paid advertising for Robinson in North Carolina this week, and neither did the National Rifle Association. Both organizations endorsed him earlier this year.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, formally revoked his endorsement this week and canceled a fundraiser for Robinson. Govs. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Brian Kemp of Georgia also pulled their endorsements. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., demanded answers.

“If Mr. Robinson doesn’t put forth facts as part of a lawsuit that would discredit the sources by this week, then we’ve got to move on,” Tillis told reporters at the Capitol this week, adding that he would not campaign with the lieutenant governor.

So far, Robinson has said the report contains “salacious lies” and insisted he will only discuss his campaign priorities, not the scandal.

The North Carolina Values Coalition endorsed Robinson in August, calling him a “family values alternative to Josh Stein.” In a statement to WORLD, Executive Director Tami Fitzgerald said she is still waiting for details about Robinson’s situation.

“We believe the CNN story was impeccably timed to cause discouragement and suppress voter turnout for Christian voters in every conservative race in the state, not just the governor’s race,” Fitzgerald said in a written statement. “We did ask Mark Robinson if the CNN allegations were true, and he told us they are absolutely untrue. We don’t know the truth about what happened, and we are waiting for all the facts to become clear.”

On Tuesday, Robinson announced he hired a law firm to respond to the CNN report, which in a follow-up conversation Fitzgerald called a “good sign.” She has concerns about the truthfulness of CNN’s reporting and sources.

“We don’t want to join in false accusations if they are false,” she said. “What we’re saying is we don’t have enough proof to believe the allegations yet, and so we’re just watching and waiting. But we encourage Christians to still vote. Honestly, we have a lot of issues to vote on, and in terms of the issues, the best candidate is Mark Robinson.”

Robinson supports conservative priorities such as cutting taxes, boosting funding for law enforcement, and increasing pro-life and Second Amendment protections. His opponent, Stein, is running on a predominantly pro-abortion platform and has been endorsed by leading liberal figures at the state and national level. Stein has led in the polls for the majority of the campaign, though Robinson has said the polls do not accurately reflect conservative opinions.

In 2018, Robinson’s statements at a town hall lamenting gun control and demanding conservative leadership catapulted him to the spotlight and helped him win the lieutenant governor seat in 2020. But the name recognition he received did not translate to widespread popularity, according to analysts WORLD spoke with.

“Frankly, the narrative about Mark was already out there, just not the full extent,” said Paul Shumaker, a Republican political campaign consultant for 40 years. “He was already on the record as a Holocaust denier, and we already had opposition research profiles showing he would lose badly to Stein.”

Shumaker worked on local prosecutor Bill Graham’s primary campaign against Robinson earlier this year. He sent two studies to the Republican Governors Association based on polling from Public Opinion Strategies. In the general election outlook, data revealed that Robinson had the highest name recognition compared to other potential governor candidates but also higher unfavorability. A word map showed that his supporters often cited “speaks his mind” and “conservative” as reasons they favored him. In the unfavorable column, common terms included “too far right,” “racist,” and “speaks his mind.”

Robinson’s base of support has held steady amid the scandal. Elizabeth City, N.C., inn owner Holly Audette has held several fundraisers for him and donated to his campaign. Like many supporters, she said that the timing of the CNN report, the day before the final federal deadline to exit the ballot, struck her as suspicious. She said watching Stein’s ads about the scandal the next day convinced her the matter was a Democratic-led smear campaign against Robinson.

“You have a person with a large personality, who is a minority and who holds conservative and Christian values. That makes you a target immediately,” Audette told WORLD. “Ever since I’ve known him to be on the public scene there have been whisper campaigns, nastiness, ugliness, and personal attacks. When I saw the specific CNN ones, I just thought, here we go again.”

Audette said she believes Robinson. As a Christian voter, she likes his references to faith and his push for religious liberty. But she said her support stems more from his policies than his personality.

“I don’t expect somebody to walk on water in order to win my vote,” Audette said. “One of the things people appreciate about Mark Robinson is he makes it very clear that he is an imperfect person and therefore relatable. It does not matter to me if someone has a past that is not perfect. I look at their policies to see if they are parallel to my Christian beliefs. And everything we believe makes him a credible, genuine person and good conservative candidate is still true of Mark Robinson.”

Even before the CNN report, Robinson trailed Stein in the polls. The latest Elon University poll released this week from data collected earlier found Stein a full 14 points ahead. Bitzer, at Catawba College, predicted that between 35 percent and 40 percent of North Carolina voters would continue to support Robinson even after the controversial report.

“This past spring, he got two-thirds of the primary vote, despite the other candidates who clearly said that going with Robinson will put the party in trouble in November,” Bitzer said. “And I think that this fits a pattern of what we’ve seen in the past of basically the primary electorate for the Republican Party being two-thirds Trumpian.”

A new AARP poll finds North Carolina a toss-up for the presidential election. In 2020, Trump won the state by less than 1.5 percent of the vote. Like in several swing states, the result will come down to who can impress unaffiliated voters. The Robinson scandal, Bitzer said, will only affect higher races if Democrats tie him to Trump. The day after CNN published its story, the Harris campaign released new ads in North Carolina that featured Trump praising Robinson.

“I think the fallout is still very much with us,” Bitzer added. “But I can’t predict what that means in November because it’s anybody’s guess at this point.”

With six weeks left, though, Shumaker said the report has given Democrats new fodder that could sway the growing proportion of unaffiliated voters in North Carolina. The number of unaffiliated voters in the state grew beyond registered Republicans and Democrats in 2022: roughly 2.8 million, compared to nearly 2.3 million registered Republicans and 2.4 million Democrats, according to the latest state election board data.

“Our early research showed that once the unaffiliated voters learned who this guy was, he was unelectable. And Josh Stein can use that now,” Shumaker said.

Robinson canceled most of his campaign appearances this week but is still scheduled to speak at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Salt and Light conference in Marion, N.C., this weekend. At an earlier Faith and Freedom annual conference appearance in Washington this summer, Robinson styled himself as a faith-based fighter for conservative values. He endorsed MAGA policies, referring to Trump’s slogan, Make America Great Again. Robinson poked at common descriptions calling MAGA voters extremists: “I didn’t see any MAGA Republicans on 9/11, blowing up buildings and airplanes.” He decried pornography in schools and criticized the several pending lawsuits against Trump. He also addressed the media in attendance.

“I don’t care what you say about me. I don’t care about your plans and your schemes to bring this nation down with your Democratic friends. Why? Because Jesus Christ is still on the throne,” Robinson called energetically from the podium. “Write your stories, tell your lies, tell your half-truths, but Christ is still on the throne, and because he lives in my heart, and I live for him. I know whatever I need to do on this earth for him, it will get done.”