Josh Stein (left) and Mark Robinson. (Photos: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)
Attorney General Josh Stein and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson crisscrossed North Carolina this week in a final push to earn votes in the race for governor — while urging support for their partisan allies down the ballot.
Stein has continued to hold a significant advantage in fundraising and polling in the final weeks of the election, while Robinson has aimed to rally his base after national Republicans all but abandoned his campaign. And they’ve both sought to use the platform of the governor’s race to elevate down-ballot candidates in Council of State and legislative races.
On campus at UNC-Chapel Hill on Monday, Stein headlined a rally alongside Gov. Roy Cooper to rev up enthusiasm among college students. Sitting front row was a laundry list of down-ballot Democrats — Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs and appeals court judge Carolyn Thompson, and Sarah Taber, the nominee for commissioner of agriculture.
“We have so many incredible people running,” Stein told the crowd of students. “It means, because these races will be close, that you all have power.”
And on Sunday, Robinson returned to where he launched his campaign, Ace Speedway in Elon. Michelle Morrow, the GOP candidate for superintendent of public instruction, and Chad Brown, running for secretary of state, joined him in front of a sparse crowd at the racetrack.
The scene was a stark contrast to one that occurred 18 months earlier at which many of the state’s top elected Republicans attended his campaign launch and spoke on his behalf. Many have since backed away from the candidate following a CNN investigation published in September that found an account tied to Robinson had made a series of explicit racist and sexist comments on a pornography website.
The few speakers at Sunday’s event defended Robinson’s character in the face of controversy, but also repeatedly reminded supporters that a vote for him and other GOP candidates, regardless of personality, was a vote foremost for conservative policymaking. One such reminder came from Robinson himself.
“You go and you vote for policies, not people, not personalities,” Robinson said. “You don’t make your decisions based on what somebody’s political opponent said about him in an ad. You make it based on the fruit of what those folks have done in office.”
Robinson says he will accept Tuesday’s results, ‘win or lose’
Robinson told NC Newsline on Sunday that he would accept the results of Tuesday’s contest, regardless of the result.
“Yes, that goes without saying yes,” Robinson said. “Prepared to accept the results of the election, win or lose, and if it’s a draw, we’re ready to work it out however we can work it out legally.”
Robinson has previously embraced false claims about the 2020 presidential election, telling a church crowd in 2021 that Biden “stole the election.”
And earlier Sunday, one of Robinson’s campaign staffers in a series of social media posts said results couldn’t be trusted “if the result is not known on Election Day.”
“The ELECTION needs to be decided on ELECTION night,” deputy communications director David Keltz wrote. In another post, he wrote “You cannot have confidence in a ‘free and fair election,’ if the result is not known on Election Day.”
And in a third post, he urged poll watchers “to be on high alert”: “Gonna make a prediction: every Democrat precinct in every swing state is going to claim that they still have thousands of more ballots to ‘count’ after election night ends.”