Can a candidate with ties to Trump break Democrats’ hold on N.C. governorship?

Mark Robinson is hoping that former president Donald Trump can do what few Republican presidential candidates have done recently: Lift the GOP candidate for North Carolina governor to victory.

Robinson, North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor and now the Republican candidate for governor, not only has Trump’s explicit endorsement—the former president called him “Martin Luther King on steroids” in March—but is also adopting his brash rhetoric, as well. Robinson has called “transgenderism” and homosexuality “filth.” He has said only men are called to leadership. As a staunch opponent of abortion, Robinson has blamed the procedure on women not being “responsible enough to keep your skirt down.” He has railed against DEI instruction in schools, and came to fame promoting gun rights at a city council meeting. At a church meeting in late June, after talking about World War II, Robinson declared that “some folks need killing.”

It's a bit of a shock for North Carolina, which has been slower than other Southern states to take up culture war topics, after a “bathroom bill” targeting transgender students brought nationwide backlash nearly a decade ago.

Josh Stein, the attorney general and Democratic nominee for governor, has tried highlighting Robinson’s controversial remarks in his campaign. He wants to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, continuing nearly three decades of moderate Democrats in statewide office ascending to the governorship. Since 1992, North Carolina Democrats have only lost one gubernatorial election—when Pat McCrory won in 2012. Gov. Roy Cooper cannot run again this year because of term limits.

The contest is expected to be the country’s most hotly contested gubernatorial election this fall. It is one of two races (along with an open seat in New Hampshire) that the Cook Political Report rates as a “tossup.” Public polls show a virtual tie. Both Stein and Robinson have raised far more money than their predecessors at this stage of the race four years ago, although Stein’s roughly $33 million is more than double the nearly $16 million Robinson has raised. Outside groups are spending even more, after Republican lawmakers made it easier for 527 organizations to fund state parties. And, of course, the presidential race between Trump and President Joe Biden is expected to be tight in North Carolina, as well.

The results could drastically reshape the agenda in Raleigh. Republicans recently gained a majority on the state Supreme Court and a supermajority in the state legislature, leaving the governorship as the main contest between the parties.

“If Robertson were to win, I assume that the Republicans will keep their supermajority in the legislature, and that means that the Republican agenda is unfettered,” said David McLennan, a Meredith College political science professor and director of the Meredith Poll. “There would be no Democratic response. Democrats have used the governor in the past eight years to be somewhat of a check on the Republican legislative agenda. Both the Democrats and the Republicans really want the governorship, just because they recognize what the legislative potential is.”

The next governor could help determine how much of the state’s $1 billion budget surplus should be spent, and how. The incoming governor will confront widespread vacancies in schools and state government, which is tied to low salaries, McLennan said. 

But if Robinson wins, he added, the Republican could push the legislature to impose further restrictions on abortion or to make changes to public schools such as expanding the use of vouchers or calling for the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms as Oklahoma has done.

On the campaign trail, Stein has touted his work as attorney general on securing a national opioid settlement, eliminating the state’s backlog of untested rape kits and combatting Medicaid fraud.

Robinson has been a guest on Newsmax and Fox News to address issues such as diversity at the state’s universities and the treatment of law enforcement. But he has chafed at answering questions about his controversial remarks, calling local reporters’ questions about them last week “pure shameful.”

At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, Robinson wore a dark suit and Trump’s trademark red tie as he introduced himself to GOP delegates. In a short speech, he avoided many of the controversies that have engulfed him back home. Instead, he described how he went from declaring personal bankruptcy to becoming a prominent political figure.

“I am not one of the political elite,” he said. “I grew up poor as the ninth of 10 kids in Greensboro, with an alcoholic father who beat my mother. I’d love to tell you that I graduated high school and found success, never worried about money again, but I can’t. I lost two manufacturing jobs to NAFTA, which by the way, Joe Biden voted for. Politicians in D.C. made bad decisions and people like me suffered.”

“As governor, I will not forget where I came from or the struggles of the people I meet,” he said.

Experts say the outcome of the race will largely depend not on Stein, but how North Carolina voters respond to Trump and Robinson.

“Robinson is taking up all the oxygen in the room. For better or for worse, it is going to be about Robinson,” said Pope “Mac” McCorkle, a public policy professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

Susan Roberts, a political science professor at Davidson College, said Robinson’s speech at the convention aligned with broader themes at the Republican gathering.

“What struck me as Robinson talked last night at the RNC convention, was that his remarks were very similar to those of JD Vance,” she said, referring to the U.S. senator from Ohio and Trump’s pick for the vice presidential nomination. They both had a message of: “I came from nothing, here are my struggles, but things are possible for the working class, and the working poor.”

Plus, Trump, Vance and Robinson all had no experience in politics before coming to prominence, she noted. “It’s not a big minus in terms of elections, especially on the Republican side.”

“[Robinson] was really inexperienced” when Trump endorsed him in this year’s gubernatorial primary, added McLennan. “Lieutenant governor was his first position in politics. Just the fact that Trump laid hands on him really mattered. But he will say and do things that Trump will not say and do. So we may see some ticket-splitting in North Carolina continue. Some suburban women who might be uncomfortable with Robinson’s stance on abortion may be Stein-Trump voters.”

But Roberts said the national headwinds could work against Stein, too. Access to abortion, which has been at the center of Stein’s messaging, is low on the list of issues voters care about this year, she said, while the economy and immigration are bigger concerns. And Trump seems to be performing better in North Carolina than he did in 2020, when he barely defeated Biden there, Roberts noted.

“Trump is winning the enthusiasm gap, and if that's the case, and people are unsure about Joe Biden, I think that might tip the scales to Trump and Robinson,” Roberts said.