North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson will win the Republican nomination for governor, CNN projects, setting up a general election campaign in the Tar Heel State that could mirror the anticipated presidential matchup in a crucial 2024 battleground.
Robinson defeated two other candidates to get the party’s nod – and an expected date with North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, the likely Democratic nominee.
Endorsed by former President Donald Trump on the eve of the primary, Robinson has been the state’s second-ranked executive since 2021, serving under (and in opposition to) term-limited Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Robinson will slide comfortably onto a ticket with Trump in November. A fierce supporter of gun rights and abortion bans, he has also faced accusations of dabbling in antisemitic, misogynist and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
“Whenever they mention my name, they always mention my name in conjunction with social issues and how I hate everybody,” Robinson said at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month. “According to them, I hate everybody. I hate people who walk and talk and walk upright. I hate people who drive cars. I don’t hate anybody.”
After he described “transgenderism” and “homosexuality” as “filth” in June 2021 remarks that went viral months later, Democrats up and down the ballot called for him to resign. Instead, Robinson doubled down.
“The language I used, I am not ashamed of it,” he told Raleigh TV station WRAL that fall. “I will use it in the future because, again, it is time for parents in this state to take a strong stand for their children.”
Robinson, in social media posts, downplayed the atrocities of Nazi Germany and argued that socialism was – and should have always been – a greater concern than European fascism.
“We often speak of the ‘appeasement’ of Hitler. But the biggest ‘appeasement’ of ALL TIME is how we turned a blind eye to the clear and present danger of MARXISM,” he wrote in 2019.
In Stein, the expected Democratic nominee, Robinson has a foil similar to Trump’s in President Joe Biden. Both Democrats support LGBTQ and abortion rights, more restrictions on guns and more robust social spending.
After Trump officially backed Robinson over the weekend, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton offered a preview of the campaign to come.
“It’s no surprise that the Lieutenant Governor, who seeks a total ban on abortion with no exceptions would receive the endorsement of Donald Trump, who brags about appointing the justices that overturned Roe v. Wade,” Clayton said in a statement.
Robinson’s office says he supports so-called heartbeat bans, with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
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