You’ve seen the ads, heard about the scandal. What else to know about Mark Robinson

The political rise of the Republican candidate for North Carolina governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, started online.

His first run for elected office, the one he now holds, came about after a pro-gun rights speech at a city council meeting turned into a viral video.

He already had a large following, in the thousands, for his conservative opinions shared on Facebook. Some of those comments would come back to hurt him during the campaign this year, making some voters wary of his personality, his policy positions, or both.

And there’s the shadow cast over his campaign since mid-September: the damaging CNN report that alleges Robinson made a series of antisemitic, racist and sexually explicit posts a decade ago on a pornographic website, which he denies. The comments, which CNN linked to Robinson’s personal email address and username in multiple ways, include referring to himself as a “Black NAZI,” saying he supported slavery and recalling that he peeped into a women’s locker room as a teenager. Robinson denied the allegations and on Oct. 15 sued CNN for defamation.

Robinson is North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor, and if he wins would be the first Black governor.

Before the September surprise, Robinson was trailing Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein in several polls — more than the divide between Democratic and Republican voters. He was known for years of insulting rhetoric directed at a range of people, including teachers, LGBTQ+ people and school shooting survivors. His comments against DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and Critical Race Theory have gained him supporters, too, and he spoke about opposing those concepts at a Moms for Liberty event this year.

The News & Observer asked Robinson’s campaign several times, including before the primary election and again throughout the year for a one-on-one interview, but they deferred and eventually did not respond. The N&O also requested interviews with Robinson’s family, friends and colleagues, which were also delayed and then a spokesperson didn’t respond to a final request in October.

But Robinson doesn’t lack for media time. He’s the subject, not only of attack ads from Stein and supporters, N.C. Central University political science professor Jarvis Hall noted this week — “but also ads for for candidates for down-ballot races who are trying to link their opponent to Mark Robinson.”

“And so he has received more air time and more face time than just about anybody else in a race in recent time in the state of North Carolina,” Hall said at a News & Observer event on NCCU’s campus.

Staff shakeup

Within a week of the CNN report, nearly all of Robinson’s campaign staff quit, followed soon by half of his lieutenant governor staff, which included all the top officials.

Robinson has been dismissive of them, telling The News & Observer that he had “moved on” just like they did.

A source familiar with how and when the campaign staff quit previously told The N&O that it was during a meeting within a few days of Robinson repeatedly turning down offers to help dispel, through technology, the allegations CNN reported.

There’s even more to it.

Robinson told the people offering to help clear his name by paying for legal or IT help that he wanted to just stick to the issues, the source said. The offers, which came from donors and others, included paying for Robinson’s attorney fees. Those offers started before the story even broke, from the morning of Sept. 18 through when the campaign staff resigned on Sept. 22. The CNN report aired on Sept. 19 and included an interview with Robinson, who also preempted the story with his own video message earlier that day when he denied what he called “tabloid trash.”

Robinson had at least a day to respond to CNN, according to the source familiar with the campaign, and CNN showed the campaign all the usernames and detailed information the network used to report the story.

Nearly a month after the story, and weeks after his staff exodus, Robinson sued CNN.

Trump has been quiet lately about Robinson, who he endorsed

Robinson owes much of his rise to prominence to the support of former President Donald Trump, who has been silent about the race since the CNN report.

At a Trump rally in Asheboro in August, Robinson was not one of the elected officials who spoke before the candidates took the stage. However, when Trump invited all the county sheriffs at the rally to join him onstage, Robinson climbed the steps, too. Trump welcomed him and made a reference to Robinson’s recent weight loss. But after that, Robinson was not seen at any rallies, even as either Trump or his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, has visited North Carolina weekly.

Trump distanced himself from Robinson when asked by a Politico reporter this week whether North Carolina voters should still support Mark Robinson for governor, saying he wasn’t “familiar with the state of the race right now.”

Robinson went back out on the campaign trail in late September, with a heavy focus on criticizing the response to Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and the federal government. He skipped a vote by the Council of State to issue a state of emergency. And he took umbrage that Cooper did not invite him to join him at official Helene response events. Robinson has not appeared with high-profile Republican elected officials, either. He’s been working with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office relief efforts.

His pitch

In recent weeks, his campaign stops have come together with a day or less notice, including dropping some events scheduled under his former campaign staff and adding new ones. On a late Friday afternoon in Hillsborough, he talked to voters in the parking lot of a Dollar General shopping center.

As Robinson spoke, a few critics across the parking lot heckled him.

“Before we even get started: I want you all to notice something. You know, when we go to rallies and even when we see people we don’t like, you know what we do? We just keep walking to our destination. We don’t act foolish, we don’t say things like that. We don’t holler and scream and get out of order,” Robinson told the crowd.

“Our campaign on television hasn’t been about trying to smear the other guy. I don’t have to smear Josh Stein. I don’t have to smear him. He smeared himself with his bad record as a legislator and as attorney general. I don’t have to do it. His record speaks for himself. Josh Stein was a legislator back in 2008. Democrats had complete control of this state. And guess what? This state was dead broke,” Robinson said, and talked about frozen teacher pay and state employee furloughs.

Robinson went on to say that he thinks the No. 1 issue in North Carolina is the economy.

“Our economy now, the economy we talk about, it sounds like one issue, but it’s not. It’s a single issue, but it’s not a singular issue — that economy is propped up on five pillars, and what are they? There’s public safety, there’s public education, there’s health care, there’s infrastructure, there’s housing. Why is that important when you’re talking about who the governor is?”

Robinson listed off all the appointees that a governor makes, including leaders and board members for all five of those areas.

During the primary election earlier this year, Robinson told The News & Observer in a candidate questionnaire that his biggest issue he would be able to shape if elected would be education.

“An unaccountable bureaucracy at the state level has our education system struggling and COVID-19 only made it worse. Students are struggling to catch up,” Robinson said then. “We need to bring accountability to bureaucracy at the state level, get politics out of the classroom, refocus our curriculum on academics, and prioritize getting students career ready — whether that means preparing them for a college degree or a career in trades through bolstered apprenticeship and vocational programs and more.”

Robinson supporters talk about why they like him

Tammy Clark of Mebane came to see Robinson in person for the first time at his campaign stop in Hillsborough.

“I love to hear him speak. He has a great message, a powerful message,” said Clark, who was wearing a “Cats for Trump” T-shirt.

“Sometimes he gets caught up in it, and sometimes he gets a little over the top, but when you’re passionate and sincere, you get like that sometimes,” she said.

Clark works in education and said she likes that Robinson is opposed to Critical Race Theory and wants to “get back to basics” in schools.

“The school is there for academics in my opinion, and that’s a reason I support him. I’m also pro-life,” Clark said. She wants abortion to be banned, with exceptions, after about 12 weeks, which is the current law.

James Ray of Hillsborough came to the same campaign event.

“We need a change in North Carolina. I wanted to see what he had to say. I think he’ll be good for the state,” Ray said. “He’s a man of action and gets stuff done.”

At a Trump rally across the state on the same early October day as the Hillsborough event, Trump supporters there also supported Robinson after the CNN report.

“I don’t believe a word they’re saying,” said Joan Carlson, who was attending the Trump town hall in her hometown of Fayetteville.

“It really doesn’t matter anyway,” her husband, U.S. Army veteran Dave Carlson, added.

“I know way back he wasn’t a Christian, but he wouldn’t have said that now,” Joan Carlson said. She is a Christian too, and said the economy and immigration are the most important issues to her in 2024.

Brendan Core, from Clinton, said he has been tracking the news but isn’t sure if he believes it.

“It does make you question things some,” Core said. “I’ve met Mark Robinson numerous times. At the end of the day, I know him personally and I don’t believe everything the news has to say about him,” he said.

Besides, he added, there are vast differences between Robinson and Stein. Core said his top issues were abortion and the U.S.-Mexico border.

Abortion policy

Robinson’s most vocal policy discussion has been about abortion. He has called for a variety of restrictions, from a television ad in which he says he stands by the current law passed by the Republican-supermajority General Assembly, to his stated support for a “heartbeat” bill or even stricter rules, depending on who he was talking to.

One of Stein’s campaign attack ads against Robinson used a video of Robinson talking about abortion, and how women should “keep their skirt down” to avoid it.

The full video was broadcast by Robinson on Jan. 24, 2019, and is about 20 minutes long.

“Everybody knows that abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers. It is about convenience. It is about abortion on demand. That is exactly what it’s about,” he said then. “It’s about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down or your pants up — and not get pregnant by your own choice, because you felt like getting your groove thing on. And now instead of taking care of that child, you want to kill that child so your life can go on, being on easy street and you can keep running to the club every Friday night.”

Robinson and his wife, Yolanda Hill, chose to have an abortion about 30 years ago, before they were married. Robinson talked about it in his own campaign ad that also included him saying he stood by the current law.

On Oct. 16, Robinson posted on X that he hasn’t “always chosen my words wisely when it comes to my position on abortion. I am far from perfect, but I strive everyday to be better. As your governor, I will work to build North Carolina into a destination state for mothers and families, and that means building a proactive culture of world-class healthcare and life that bolsters our communities all across the state.”

Robinson’s factory background

During the Republican National Convention, Robinson gave a speech essentially introducing himself to the country.

In that speech, and in his memoir, “We Are The Majority!”, Robinson talked about growing up in poverty in an abusive household, of working in furniture factories, and making his way to statewide office.

He’s always been clear about his childhood, writing, “I grew up in a little ramshackle, rat-infested house with a father who beat my mother, and we were dirt poor.” After Robinson’s father died, his mother was able to lift them up financially, and when Robinson was 18, he wrote, he flew on an airplane for the first time, when he joined the U.S. Army Reserve.

In his RNC speech in July, Robinson talked about times when he couldn’t pay his bills and filed for bankruptcy, saying that “many families today are having that same experience.” His other financial problems have included having to pay back taxes.

“There is hope, and I’m proof,” Robinson said.

Robinson spent most of his career as a factory worker, and has spoken often about NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), and how his career was impacted by companies moving factories out of the United States. That happened to him when he was at a Steelcase furniture factory in High Point, a job that he thrived in as an upholsterer and zone leader, he wrote in his memoir. He also worked at Klaussner Furniture and Davis Furniture.

Later in life, he finished his college degree, earning a bachelor’s in history from UNC Greensboro.

Financial trouble and Balanced Nutrition

Robinson has filed for bankruptcy multiple times. He wrote in his memoir that he worked overtime at Davis Furniture and caught up on his bills, as his wife, Yolanda Hill, started her since-closed nonprofit, Balanced Nutrition. Her nonprofit salary meant that he could quit his job to run for lieutenant governor, too, he has said. Balanced Nutrition is the intermediary between child care centers and government-funded food nutrition programs.

For several months, the nonprofit has faced scrutiny from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services after a series of missed meetings and missing documents. Now Balanced Nutrition owes the state $132,000, and has drawn scrutiny from the federal government. Hill closed the nonprofit down in April.

The attorney for Balanced Nutrition is Anthony Biller, the same Raleigh attorney who was retained to argue Mark Robinson’s defamation lawsuit.

Robinson and Republican politicians

If Robinson defies the many polls that have him down significantly, and he wins, he’ll likely face a friendly Republican-majority General Assembly. But with limits. Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory sometimes battled his Republican colleagues in the legislature, because the state gives the legislative branch more power.

After the scandal, House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters in October that he maintained his prior endorsement of Robinson, while Senate leader Phil Berger deferred on answering when reporters asked him the same day. Moore is running for Congress and won’t be in the General Assembly in 2025, when the new governor takes over. Berger is expected to maintain his level of power.

Robinson sparred with one powerful fellow Republican, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, even before the CNN report. The two increased their public insults of each other in the weeks since, with Tillis saying that Robinson should put the party before himself, and Robinson calling Tillis “spineless,” The Hill reported.

Robinson is a frequent poster on social media, as he was before he held elected office. His recent targets have also included his own party.

“If Republicans opposed radical leftists as much as they opposed each other, imagine how much more successful we would be. Cut the intra-party crap and vote for Republicans up and down the ballot. This isn’t about personality, it’s about policy,” Robinson said on X.

Reporter Mary Helen Moore contributed to this story.

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