Opinion: NC Lt. Govs. Mark Robinson, Dan Forest built roots in evangelical community

The decision to run for North Carolina lieutenant governor may appear to be a form of the fool’s ambition. After all, in the last 50 years, only two lieutenant governors have won the state’s governorship, and one of them had the poor luck to fizzle even before seeking a second term. The office does not offer the stature or responsibilities to facilitate a rise to the governor’s chair. Based on history, the best most people can expect to gain from the lieutenant governorship is a fleeting moment of prominence inside Raleigh political circles.

Perhaps this unpromising history explains why North Carolina has elected so many implausible figures to the state’s second-highest ranking office. That characterization has applied to the last two North Carolina lieutenant governors. The current occupant, Mark Robinson, is a flaming radical whose public rhetoric boasts a murderer’s row of outrages, ranging from denigration of the LGBTQ community as “filth” to literal denial of the Holocaust. Robinson, however, is not a fluke. His predecessor Dan Forest was a similarly extreme figure who represented the strand of right-wing religious conservatism that has long failed to win the governorship.

As we approach the prime of the election season, it is instructive to compare Robinson to Forest. There is a great deal of continuity between the two men. Each of them exuded the flair of a preacher and put down deep political roots in the state’s evangelical community. Forest built his campaign organization on the network of politically active fundamentalist churches that dots the rural parts of this state. Robinson has been less assiduous in building an activist network, but he has electrified congregations with flamboyant oratory, church by church, across the state and increasingly in other parts of America. As one can see from their socially conservative focus, both men bet their campaigns on driving base voters to the polls with little concern paid to appealing to more moderate swing voters. And each of them has a history of peculiar public rhetoric. Robinson is more vicious but Forest was equally eccentric; his nonprofit once expressed consternation at lingerie ads in the Target catalog.

But for all the parallels between Robinson and Forest, Forest brought a more plausible set of skills and qualifications to the table when he ran for governor in 2020. State political observers knew that Forest had genuine political skills. While serving as lieutenant governor, he expanded the powers of the office and advanced an agenda representing the hard-right flank of the state GOP. In 2013, Forest made himself the point person in social conservatives’ effort to force the state to pull out of Common Core education standards. His nominal boss, then-Gov. Pat McCrory, aligned himself with business lobbyists who favored the Common Core. The result of this confrontation was a resounding Forest victory, with North Carolina joining Texas and only a couple other states in departing from Common Core. Forest took on a sitting Republican governor on a key priority and won.

This political acumen is why analysts such as myself believed that Forest posed a genuine threat to Gov. Roy Cooper’s reelection. Mark Robinson’s chances can hardly be dismissed. But by surveying their respective tenures, one can see that Robinson lacks the political skill that made Forest appear to be a legitimate challenger to a very popular incumbent. Where Forest actively sought to enact socially conservative priorities, Robinson’s has been absent on policy. The closest the orator from Greensboro came was by creating a “F.A.C.T.S.” commission on supposed public school indoctrination, and he shelved it, preferring to clown it up for conservative audiences at gatherings like CPAC. Robinson starts his campaign with almost no record of governing accomplishment whatsoever.

The GOP frontrunner’s unimpressive tenure should inspire caution in Republican leaders. Robinson and Dan Forest had many similarities in factional affiliation and political style, yet Forest brought greater heft to the race and still lost to Roy Cooper. Robinson will likely face a Democratic opponent in Josh Stein who has worked tirelessly to amass policy accomplishments on issues like consumer protection, the opioid epidemic, and even politically risky lawsuits against corporate malefactors like the vaping giant JOOL. If Forest’s perceived extremism was enough to cancel out his authentic political skills, an equally conservative Robinson may struggle to convince North Carolinians that he has the substance to lead state government.

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Alexander H. Jones is a Policy Analyst for Carolina Forward who lives in Carrboro. Reach him at alex@carolinaforward.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: NC governor candidate Robinson is flaming radical