Republican Mark Robinson‘s chances of winning North Carolina’s race for governor appear slim, with Democrat Josh Stein maintaining a double-digit lead in the latest polls.
A survey by Emerson College has Stein, the state’s attorney general, with a 13-point lead over Robinson, North Carolina’s lieutenant governor. Fifty-one percent said they are supporting Stein for governor, while just 39 percent were supporting Robinson, 4 percent were planning to vote for someone else and 6 percent said they are undecided.
The survey was conducted among 950 likely voters between October 21 and 22, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
A Marist College survey found Stein was leading Robinson by 14 points, with 55 percent support compared to Robinson’s 41 percent. The survey of 1,226 likely voters between October 17 and 22 has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
Newsweek has contacted the Robinson and Stein campaigns for comment via email.
North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee. The latest polls show Robinson trailing Democrat Josh Stein by double digits in the race for the governorship.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
Robinson has consistently trailed in polls behind Stein, but the gap between the two candidates has expanded since Robinson’s campaign was rocked by a CNN report that alleged he posted a racist and inflammatory message on a pornography website more than a decade ago.
The CNN report, published in September, detailed posts that it said Robinson left on the website’s message board where he referred to himself as a “Black NAZI,” slammed the late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot” and said he enjoyed transgender pornography.
Robinson, who has a history of controversies and provocative remarks, denied the posts detailed in the broadcaster’s report were his and rejected calls to drop out of the gubernatorial race. He sued CNN for defamation earlier this month.
Donald Trump had previously endorsed Robinson for governor, describing him as “Martin Luther King on steroids.” But the former president’s campaign has apparently distanced itself amid concerns that the scandal could threaten Trump’s chances in North Carolina, one of the battleground states that is critical to winning the presidency in November.
Trump won North Carolina by about a percentage point in 2020 and polls show him with a narrow lead over Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
Trump has not appeared with Robinson since the middle of August and on Monday, he declined to say whether he would urge voters to back Robinson.
“I’m not familiar with the state of the race right now,” Trump told Politico during a campaign stop on Monday. “I haven’t seen it.”
But while Democrats have been highlighting Trump’s praise of Robinson amid the scandal, political experts previously told Newsweek that they doubt the association will significantly damage Trump’s chances in North Carolina.
