MaArc Robinson, the passionate Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, had been trying to move past the trouble his comments caused long before CNN dropped a smear campaign article on him on Thursday afternoon.
Robinson has treated his outrage over an increasingly stringent array of racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric as a badge of honor during his campaign and term as lieutenant governor, but the CNN report dug into his salacious Internet history and unearthed comments that still have the power to shock.
CNN’s report linked Robinson’s name, email address and biographical details to a persona called “minisoldr,” in which he described himself as a “black Nazi!”, praised Hitler, used racist slurs against Martin Luther King Jr., expressed a sexual interest in transgender pornography and said he spied on girls in public showers when he was 14.
“Slavery is not bad,” Robinson reportedly wrote, “Some people just need to be slaves. I wish we could bring slavery back. I’d definitely buy a few.”
CNN reported that it refrained from publishing its full findings because some of them were too shocking to be shared publicly.
Shortly before the report was released, Robinson insisted he would continue in the race. He couldn’t withdraw unless he did so by midnight, because the North Carolina deadline had passed.
Aware that the left has called for the removal of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for accepting questionable donations from billionaires, Robinson likened his situation to the “high-tech lynching” that Thomas endured 33 years ago over allegations of sexual misconduct with Anita Hill. “We’re not going to let them do that. We’re staying in the race. We’re fighting to win,” Robinson said.
But the bombastic candidate was already facing a crushing defeat after the national Republican Party and Donald Trump withdrew their support following his resurfaced rhetoric and poor polling results.
Robinson’s interest in transgender pornography contrasts sharply with his public opposition to transgender rights. Calls for his resignation began in 2021 after comments surfaced in which he described education that discusses transgender issues as “child abuse,” LGBTQ+ content as “filth,” and suggested transgender people should be arrested for using the wrong bathroom.
Robinson’s opponent, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, could only flood radio and social media with campaign ads that used Robinson’s own rhetoric while speaking broadly positive terms about his state and his policies and reaffirming his support for reproductive rights.
“As your next governor, I will reject further restrictions on reproductive freedom,” Stein said at a Kamala Harris rally in Greensboro.
Abortion policy is central to Robinson’s appeal to the right and perhaps to his electoral disaster for North Carolina Republicans. Robinson’s pro-life platform is not just vocal, it is defiant and condemnatory.
In a recently unearthed video of a 2022 church sermon, he attacks women’s empowerment and birth control: “Why don’t you use some of your mental and empowerment efforts to move here, to this region,” he said, placing his hand on his crotch, “and take control of this.”
Notably, Robinson has admitted to paying for an abortion for his then-girlfriend, now wife, in the 1980s, and has said he regrets it. The religious right in North Carolina has supported Robinson because of his strong anti-abortion stance.
Laura Parker lives in McDowell County, where Republicans have a 3-to-1 advantage. She went to hear Robinson speak last week. She has broad conservative political interests, but she said abortion policy is important to her identity as a voter. Trump seemed indecisive on the issue during the debate, but he doesn’t have to be the perfect candidate, just a better candidate.
She applied the same logic to Robinson, saying she was reserving judgment until the reports were sorted out.
“Honestly, I need to hear from sources other than CNN,” she said. “If he’s innocent, I think he should fight to prove his innocence. He has time to do that. But he’s been lieutenant governor for four years and now this is coming out? I’m a little skeptical.”
Robinson’s public statements and social media posts are a trove of opposition research for Democrats looking to portray their opponents as extremists.
“The choice couldn’t be clearer,” one ad reads. “Donald Trump and Mark Robinson, whose vision is division, violence and hatred. Mark Robinson is only fighting a culture war that will take jobs… Just a few weeks ago, from his church pulpit, he said, ‘Some people just have to be killed.'”
ohIn order to defend himself from all angles, Robinson has gone into hiding since winning the Republican primary earlier this year, refusing interviews with all but the most hardline conservative publications and networks and largely avoiding public appearances.
But his strategy of riding Trump’s coattails and banking on the state’s generally conservative leanings has unravelled under a wave of negative coverage about his campaign finances, alleged mismanagement of his wife’s government-funded nonprofit organization and his consistently inflammatory rhetoric.
Robinson hasn’t led a poll since June, and even before the CNN revelation, Joe Biden’s July withdrawal from the race threatened to turn a close race into a landslide defeat. The latest Emerson College poll has Robinson trailing Stein by 8 points.
So Robinson emerged again a few weeks ago, in a small venue far from the scrutiny of big-market news reporters, trying to experiment with messaging that would retain as much heat as possible without burning people: Cayenne rhetoric, not Carolina Reaper.
On Sept. 11, the day after the Harris-Trump debate, Robinson walked into a back room at Countryside Barbecue in the deep-red town of Marion, North Carolina, seeking friendly territory and reconstructing his rhetorical image as best he could under fire.
His campaign speeches touched on policy issues like gas prices, teacher pay and state taxes rather than the culture war Molotov cocktails on abortion, guns and gays that launched his career and won him the nomination.
But his attention was drawn to how the media and his Democratic opponents had attacked him.
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“There’s this guy named Josh Stein who wants to tell you all sorts of things that are not the truth,” Robinson said. “He picked up a Facebook post about me from eight or nine years ago and he just cut out about three seconds of it and put it on. He didn’t put the whole thing on, and it was something like, ‘Keep your skirt down.'”
Robinson was referring to wall-to-wall ads running across the state that repeatedly play a 2009 Facebook video in which Robinson says abortion is “killing a baby because you didn’t have the nerve to pull your skirt down responsibly.”
“He cut out the part that said, ‘Or keep your pants up,'” Robinson told a conservative audience last week, but it sounded persuasive to them. He suggested the ads and others were deceptive. He called his opponent a liar. He challenged the press to cover it. He also called for a debate, which Stein has refused to do.
A shadow of Robinson’s dashingness lurked beneath the freshly painted facade.
He spent almost as much time lecturing the president and vice president in his western North Carolina mountain town as he did his actual opponents.
“Harris, who was riding alongside Biden while he was on the campaign trail, was on TV last night talking about how she’s going to solve this problem,” Robinson said of Harris. “She’s destroyed everything, but she can’t solve it. Has she ever advocated for policies since she took office that would solve the problems we’re facing today?”
Robinson backed down from previous calls for a total abortion ban in North Carolina. Earlier this year, he called for a six-week “heartbeat” law to restrict abortion. Earlier this week, he called for the nation to “move on” from the abortion issue.
“People may have different opinions on that,” he said to a room full of Marion city churchgoing Republicans.
“Here’s my take: No matter where this law ends up, as governor of this state, I’m going to fight to save every single life in the womb, whether it’s 12 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 20 weeks. We’re going to fight for lives in this state.”
In a nod to Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. and “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance, several members of Robinson’s traveling team wore shirts with “Felon/Hillbilly” emblazoned on them.
The shirt reflects Robinson’s racial leanings. For better or worse, he has identified himself with Trump’s stance and politics. But even the Trump campaign is growing weary.
According to the conservative newspaper Carolina Journal, the Trump campaign is urging Robinson to withdraw, fearing that swing votes in North Carolina could abandon not only the lieutenant governor but the entire Republican vote.
The Carolina Journal, citing anonymous campaign officials, reported that Stein’s campaign leaked documents to CNN saying the Trump campaign told Robinson she would no longer attend Trump or Vance rallies. Trump has not mentioned Robinson in the last week. Vance held his first solo rally in North Carolina on Wednesday. Robinson did not show up. His office said Robinson had contracted COVID-19.
Trump campaign officials denied to NBC that they had pressured Robinson to drop out of the race.
Stein’s campaign released a brief statement shortly after the CNN segment aired.
“North Carolinians already know that Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor,” the campaign said. “Josh is focused on winning this race so that together we can build a safer and stronger North Carolina for all of us.”
But the Harris campaign has gleefully circulated a video of Trump praising Robinson, whom he called “Martin Luther King Jr. on steroids.”
“I am not a member of the KKK. They do not allow black people to join. If I was a member of the KKK I would call him Martin Lucifer Coon!” Robinson said in a comment under the persona “minisoldr.”
