By every available metric, Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was already losing North Carolina’s gubernatorial race. The question was less about whether he’d fail and more about the margin of his upcoming defeat.

But the latest revelations about the extremist candidate have generated an entirely different set of questions — such as whether Robinson’s campaign will be able to continue.

That’s what tends to happen when BLN appears to uncover evidence of a gubernatorial candidate publishing to a porn website’s message board, describing himself as a “black NAZI,” who doesn’t think slavery was necessarily a “bad” thingand who enjoys transgender pornography. (Robinson has denied the accuracy of the reporting.)

The day after BLN’s report reached the public, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign took advantage of the opportunity. The New York Times reported:

It’s an ad North Carolinians should probably expect to see quite a bit in the coming days.

What’s more, it’s not just Team Harris. Less than a day after the right-wing candidate confronted yet another round of brutal headlines, the Democratic National Committee also unveiled new advertisements — including billboards — linking Robinson to Trump.

The point, as an NBC News report explained, is not subtle: Democrats don’t just want to remind North Carolina’s electorate about Robinson’s scandals, they also want to tie the former president to Robinson’s sinking ship. There are different paths to the White House this year, but nearly everyone can agree that if the Republican ticket falls short in the Tar Heel State, Donald Trump will not return to power next year.

Even JD Vance conceded on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this past weekend, “It’s very hard for us to win unless we’re able to get North Carolina.”

It’s among the reasons why Democrats were so glad to see Robinson’s latest scandal: The more North Carolinians turn out to support state Attorney General Josh Stein’s gubernatorial campaign this year, the better Harris’ odds of winning the state, too.

At least, that’s the theory. Recent history tells us that North Carolinians have been willing to split their ballots, voting for a gubernatorial candidate from one party, while supporting a presidential candidate from the other party, at the same time. It happened in 2016 and 2020for example, and it could certainly happen again in 2024.

But as Robinson flails, it’s not surprising that Democrats would want to take full advantage of the opportunity.

Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”