Mark Robinson on track for 'largest defeat in more than 40 years' of any NC gov candidate

27 Sep 2024, 23:10 by https://www.facebook.com/17108852506 · AlterNet

Image via screengrab/Mark Robinson/X.
Carl Gibson
September 27, 2024Election 2024

The North Carolina gubernatorial election could culminate in the most lopsided victory for any candidate in decades, according to the latest polling.

A new CNN/SSRS poll shows that Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who is the Republican nominee in the Tar Heel State's 2024 race for the governorship, is now 17 points behind Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein with just five weeks to go before Election Day. The poll is notably the first survey of North Carolina voters since the news broke of an account believed to be Robinson making numerous racist, anti-Semitic, pro-slavery and even pro-Hitler posts on an adult website's message board.

While Stein led Robinson in polls taken prior to the story, his new significant lead over the lieutenant governor could be a turning point in the election. According to CNN, if the poll turns out to be accurate, it would mean Robinson is about to "suffer the largest defeat in more than 40 years for a major-party nominee for governor in North Carolina."

FiveThirtyEight's aggregated polling data shows that Stein holds a double-digit lead over Robinson in surveys taken by both Marist College as well as a poll by the New York Times and Siena College. The last time any candidate won by such a large margin was 1980, when popular Democratic Governor Jim Hunt — who was the incumbent — defeated his Republican opponent by a 24-point margin.

Stein's huge lead over Robinson has so far not translated to an advantage for Vice President Kamala Harris in the battleground state. FiveThirtyEight shows that polls of the presidential election in the Tar Heel State have Harris in a dead heat with former President Donald Trump — including the CNN/SSRS poll that showed Stein far ahead of Robinson. Most other polls taken in September with the exception of one show Harris with a narrow lead of no more than two points, which is within the margin of error.

Former Republican North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory said recently that North Carolina voters have a propensity for "ticket-splitting," in which a majority of voters will elect a Republican president but a Democrat to the governor's mansion. This happened in 2016 and 2020, when the Tar Heel State's electorate voted for Trump both times while simultaneously voting to elect and reelect Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.

However, in that same interview, McCrory noted that the North Carolina Republican Party had known for awhile that Robinson's extreme policy positions and rhetoric could come back to bite them, calling the sitting lieutenant governor a "ticking time bomb." He laid blame for Robinson's likely loss in November at the feet of former state GOP chair Michael Whatley, who is now the chairman of the Republican National Committee.

CNN's KFile report about Robinson's posts on the Nude Africa website specifically mentioned posts from an account named "minisoldr" with the profile display name "Mark Robinson." One of the posts called for a return to chattel slavery, while another lauded Hitler's manifesto "Mein Kampf" in a thread about book recommendations. In another post, the account believed to be Robinson's called himself a "Black NAZI" and lamented that he couldn't join the Ku Klux Klan given his race.

Since the story emerged, Robinson has insisted the posts were not him and dismissed the article as "tabloid trash." As of Friday, Trump has not rescinded his endorsement of Robinson. In March, Trump referred to Robinson as "Martin Luther King on steroids" and praised him as an "unbelievable lieutenant governor."

Click here to read CNN's report in full.