Supporters hold campaign signs for Mark Robinson and Josh Stein on Aug. 29, 2024 in Washington, North Carolina. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)
WASHINGTON, N.C. — Tempers were rising among the political faithful on Market Street.
Local leaders with the Beaufort County Democratic Party had assembled on the sidewalk outside Shep’s Grill, holding signs that say “VOTE BLUE” and “Josh Stein for Governor.”
Just inside the restaurant, Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson — Stein’s opponent — was posing for photos with supporters during one of several campaign stops on a late August afternoon.
Now, Republican attendees were trickling outside and coming face-to-face with the Democrats. Among them were Gary and Kiyana Brown, who had driven from nearby Grimesland with their daughter to meet Robinson. The lieutenant governor would stand up “for women’s rights, he’ll stand up for men’s rights, he’ll stand up for all people’s rights,” said Gary Brown, donning a red Robinson hat outside the restaurant.
Marlene McCabe, the county’s Democratic chair, had a different take on the Republican nominee and his supporters.
“If you can admit to us that your wife had an abortion, then why are you so against people having abortions?” McCabe said, in reference to Robinson and his wife Yolanda.
“Yet you have people today, like this lady” — she waved toward a group of Republican faithful nearby on the sidewalk — “that stands here, and keeps standing that we don’t know what abortion is… and you’re supporting somebody that did it.”
Gary Brown (left), of Grimesland, and Marlene McCabe, chair of the Beaufort County Democratic Party, argue outside of a campaign event for Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson on Aug. 29, 2024 in Washington, North Carolina. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)
Soon enough, McCabe and Brown were arguing. “You want to talk about a man behind his back,” Brown said, urging her to go inside with him and speak to Robinson. “All you have to do is Google,” McCabe replied.
And minutes later, two others had to be separated after one of the Democratic women alleged that a Robinson supporter called her “they/them.” “Watch yourself, little girl,” she shouted.
The groups eventually dispersed after the restaurant’s owner came outside and asked them to calm down. “This is still my business,” he said. “If (Gov. Roy) Cooper’s people call, I’ll let him be here. I’d let (Vice President Kamala) Harris be here. Anyone.”
Locals in the area are no stranger to politicking and election-year campaigning. A week later, just blocks away on the Pamlico River, a “Trump boat parade” was set to pass through.
“You’ll see the most brutal things said,” Carolyn Garris, the county’s register of deeds and Republican Party chair, told NC Newsline. “And I get it. This is politics.”
But the local scuffle also embodied this race for governor between Robinson and Stein. It’s a battleground state clash that’s featured clashes over divisive policy issues and been defined for weeks at a time by scandal and controversy, elevating the stakes of the moment for North Carolinians.
From the stage and on television, candidates’ families were deemed fair game. Both have painted the other as an existential threat to the future of North Carolina. And as national attention and headlines piled up, the attorney general and lieutenant governor continued to pitch themselves as the best choice to lead the Tar Heel State.
How Josh Stein waged a campaign against an opponent deemed ‘unfit’ for office
Stein, faced with a rival who made a name for himself through provocative and headline-grabbing speeches, has opted for the opposite approach.
He rarely strays far from the core of his platform on the campaign trail – economic fairness, well-funded schools and safe communities.
North Carolina’s economy, Stein says, should be built “from the bottom up and the middle down,” bolstered by minimum wage increases and tax cuts for working families. He calls for investment in schools from pre-K to college, emphasizing technical education and apprenticeships while asking teachers in the audience to raise their hands for applause.
“It is long past time teachers got a real pay raise in North Carolina,” he says.
Attorney General Josh Stein during a campaign event at Word of God Fellowship Hall in Raleigh, North Carolina on Aug. 6, 2024.
On health care, he touts the state’s recent expansion of Medicaid while pledging to veto “any further restrictions” on abortion that Republican lawmakers would send to his desk.
And he leans on his time as AG to address key issues of public safety: opioid settlement money to fight drug addiction and fund recovery, and a cleared backlog of rape kits. Discussion of violent crime and immigration – mainstays of Republican attacks on Stein and Democrats up and down the ballot – is mostly absent.
He’s attempting to recreate his predecessor Roy Cooper’s path to the governor’s mansion, and in many ways sounds like a continuation of the current administration – a check on what’s certain to remain a Republican legislature, while aiming to make a mark through executive authority.
Stein doesn’t shy away from criticizing Robinson on the trail. The lieutenant governor, he says, prioritizes “division, violence and hate.” He ticks off some of Robinson’s most notorious lines – a reference “wicked people” in public schools, his declaration from a church pulpit that “some folks need killing.”
“He says truly awful things about people,” Stein says in his stump speech.
He expanded that line of criticism after the bombshell CNN report shook up the race. “He wants to bring slavery back. He praises Hitler,” Stein told supporters in Greensboro on Sept. 29.
But as the rest of the political world turned their eyes briefly toward the controversies roiling his opponent’s campaign, Stein said the race at its core hadn’t changed.
“He was unfit to be governor before that story even broke,” he said.
Stein has reserved some of his campaign’s sharpest – and most personal – attacks for television ads.
A 30-second spot in July took aim at the Greensboro daycare formerly owned by Robinson and his wife, detailing state inspections and a citation.
It spurred a cease-and-desist demand from Robinson, and a back-and-forth between attorneys for both campaigns. In the end, the ad stayed on air; attorneys for Stein’s campaign dismissed a threat of defamation as having “no merit,” according to a copy of their letter to the Robinson campaign obtained by NC Newsline.
Most of the campaign’s other advertisements aimed to use Robinson’s words against him. “He doesn’t trust us or respect us,” one woman says during “Problem,” an ad focused on the lieutenant governor’s past comments on abortion and women. And “War” highlights Robinson’s declaration to “take the head of your enemy.”
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (left) and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro speak to reporters at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro in Greensboro, North Carolina on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)
“It’s really turned into a referendum on Mark Robinson,” said David McLennan, a professor of political science at Meredith College who runs the Meredith Poll, said of the election.
That’s in part thanks to the Stein campaign’s unrelenting TV bombardment. But in the final weeks of the race, his allies have also made a clear effort to define the attorney general as a candidate on his own terms.
“Josh Stein doesn’t need my advice,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told NC Newsline on the campaign trail in September.
“Some of you in the media, and I mean this respectfully, have focused on this race because of the extraordinary extremism of his opponent,” Shapiro — a one-time frontrunner to be vice president — added. “Where in reality, the great story to tell here is the story of Josh Stein’s accomplishments as attorney general and knowing what he’ll do as governor.”
McLennan said Stein’s messaging focused on his background and work as AG have been effective in increasing his name recognition. But his opponent’s reputation, he said, meant he rarely had to tread new ground on policy.
“He’s not trying to broaden the issues too much, like you might see in a traditional governor’s race,” McLennan said.
One supporter — Mindy Nelson, 66, of Fuquay-Varina — drew a contrast between the two candidates after a town hall for Stein in Raleigh.
“I really like him,” Nelson said. “And honestly, I think the alternative is frightening, horrifying. There is no question that he is a man – someone with decency.”
Mark Robinson drew online virality — and eventually bled support
Robinson rose to prominence first online, the subject of a viral video from Greensboro City Council meeting at which he rose to speak in favor of gun rights.
It was fitting then that for the first several months of Robinson’s campaign for governor, most North Carolinians saw him through a screen.
Early television ads introduced him to the general electorate – positioning himself as a blue-collar worker who would “never forget where I came from,” and zeroing in on prices and costs of living as a top issue.
Meanwhile, Democrats and opposition groups continued to dig up clips, new and old, of Robinson – “some folks need killing” – that would later be stitched into ads of their own.
Robinson was making private stops at small businesses and local Republican chapters during the summer, as advertised by his social media accounts. He rarely appeared in-person at government functions like the Council of State of State Board of Education.
When he did have to face reporters and was pressed on his comments making headlines, he told them “you should be ashamed.” And on social media, his communications staff blasts the press as often as they do their Democratic opponents.
Robinson began to flesh out his policy platform in spurts, outlining a “10-point plan” for the economy in a three-page memo that promised more tax cuts and North Carolina’s becoming a “leader in cryptocurrency.”
He deflected scrutiny of his and his wife’s prior business dealings, calling it “weaponization” in an echo of the Republican nominee for president, while attempting to claim that Stein’s wife was somehow involved with the investigation. (She was not, the state agency charged with the investigation confirmed. Stein called the accusation “ridiculous.”)
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson poses for photos with supporters after a campaign event at Shep’s Grill in Washington, North Carolina on Aug. 29, 2024.
In late August, he began to map out daily, public events. He entered restaurants in rural eastern North Carolina to applause, before giving a few minutes of remarks – a less-polished stump speech, with frequent asides.
“They’re trying to paint me as a criminal,” he told supporters at Brantley’s Village Restaurant in Oriental. And while “my opponents want to point to things I said on Facebook 10 years ago,” he said in Washington, Stein “refuses to do his damn job.”
He even started taking occasional questions from the press, telling a local reporter and photographer about the importance of rural voters.
Voters at these meet-and-greets were enthusiastic about Robinson — choosing to look past some of his previous controversial remarks, including about women.
“There’s no one perfect,” Anne-Marrie LeBus, a Pamlico County resident who attended a Robinson event in late August, told NC Newsline. “We also support Trump. He’s a man. He has his failings and he has his positives. And you have to weigh it – what’s going to be pivotal in this election? What is it we need? They represent what we need.”
The more traditional style of retail campaigning indicated a shift in strategy, more geared to a general electorate. It was made explicit by an ad Robinson’s campaign started airing earlier that month.
Seated next to his wife Yolanda, he described their decision for her to have an abortion 30 years ago. And he backed North Carolina’s ban after 12 weeks of pregnancy, as well as “common sense exceptions” for cases involving rape, incest and risk to the mother’s life.
Campaign merchandise on display during an event for Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson at Shep’s Grill in Washington, North Carolina on Aug. 29, 2024.
It was a moderation of his previous calls to “get it down to six (weeks),” as well as saying he doesn’t believe in abortion “under any circumstances.” And it marked a bold approach to a divisive issue that many Republicans in competitive races have struggled to navigate or tried to avoid. (His opponents labeled it “desperate” and “spin.”)
“He was so well known for his extreme stands on abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, etc. that even a lot of messaging — which I don’t think he had the opportunity to do — would not necessarily change a lot of minds,” McLennan said. “I think a lot of people just responded to his abortion message with disbelief.”
Any efforts to make Robinson more palatable for the swing state electorate quickly hit a wall, after CNN published its investigation detailing a laundry list of racist and sexist comments on a pornography website.
Robinson denied the comments were his and stayed in the race. On Oct. 15 he sued CNN, alleging that the story was defamatory and “election interference,” without producing new evidence that he made the online posts.
Hesitation among some Republicans toward the lieutenant governor, which bubbled up during the contested primary race, soon reached a boiling point.
GOP governors in neighboring states unendorsed him and distanced themselves; Donald Trump stopped inviting him to rallies; a competitive legislative candidate called on him to drop out; and the national group funding Republican gubernatorial candidates pulled their funding.
Polling in the race, which had already shown Robinson trailing Stein, grew even more lopsided; the Democrat held double-digit leads that, if mirrored on election night, would be the biggest North Carolina blowout in years.
Robinson was left with skeleton staffs in his state office and campaign, back on the trail and fuming at reporters for dwelling on the CNN story.
When Hurricane Helene devastated the west, he sought out a local sheriff’s office to begin coordinating private aid – with his office having no formal role in disaster response.
“The only thing I’ve ever sought to do is serve the people of this state well,” Robinson told reporters on Oct. 2 in Louisburg. “Going through this experience right now drives that point home, because I can guarantee you somebody out there, after all this is over, is going to look at me and say, ‘you know, you are a hero for what you did.’”