Politics

In Mark Robinson’s fall, Republicans are getting what they asked for

Published

2 years ago

November 12, 2024

In Mark Robinson’s fall, Republicans are getting what they asked for

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina, can no longer win a political race in the state — or anywhere in America, for that matter.

Not after BLN uncovered sexually explicit and inflammatory postshe reportedly wrote in the comments of a pornographic website. According to the report, Robinson — who’s campaigned as a fundamentalist, Christian conservative — commented frequently between 2008 and 2012 on a site called “Nude Africa.”

He’s an outstanding person. I’ve gotten to know him so well.”

Donald Trumpon Mark Robinson

Robinson has denied he is the author of the posts, saying “these are not the words of Mark Robinson” and dismissing the report as “salacious tabloid trash.” But BLN’s reporters documented several connections between the candidate, the email he used to register with the sites and biographical details posted to the various profiles.

The porn chatroom posts identified as Robinson’s are graphic, sexually menacing and demeaning to women. If you track them down, you can’t unsee them.

He commented on his love for transgender pornography, called himself a “Black Nazi,” made profane comments about a woman’s alleged rape, referred to Martin Luther King Jr. by a racial slur (note that this article later quotes some of that language, which readers may find offensive), and even reminisced graphically about a teenage experience peeping on a women’s locker room at a local college.

These are just the tip of a nasty iceberg. BLN acknowledged many of the things Robinson is accused of writing were so lurid, they couldn’t be published.

If these statements offend you, congratulations: You are a thinking, feeling person. You’re holding your elected leaders to a higher standard than the North Carolina Republican Party, which doubled downon its support for Robinson on Thursday night after the report was published. Most folks wouldn’t let the guy in this story watch their dog, much less lead their state.

North Carolina Republicans had few realistic options for replacing Robinson, with the state deadline for candidates to withdraw just hours away when the story dropped. But there’s no reason to think they would have pushed him out anyway. They’ve stuck with him through every disturbing scandal so farand there have been a lot.

This is what rigor mortis looks like in a campaign.

His candidacy was damaged and unhinged from the start, fetishizing violence, demonizing gay people and talking about women like they’re trash. The party has had literally dozens of opportunities to disavow Robinson: when he said some folks out there “need killing,” when he fantasized about murdering people in the governmentwith his AR-15, when he called LGBTQ people “maggots,” when he said women getting abortions just need to keep their “skirt down.”

The party routinely looked past Robinson’s breathtaking hypocrisy. A 2022 story revealed that Robinson, who has referred to abortion as “murder” and abortion doctors as “butchers,” once paid for a girlfriend’s abortion. He’s implied gender-neutral restrooms are a breeding ground for perverts. He’s said women need protection from those perverts, but boasted online about spying on college girls in a locker room, according to BLN. He described LGBTQ+ people as “maggots” but according to that same BLN report, he once wrote about his enjoyment of pornography that features trans people, enthusiastically describing himself as a “perv.”

Many of Robinson’s Republican peers have held him up as a champion, though, an example of America at its finest. At one stump speech in North Carolina, Donald Trump said Robinson was “like a fine wine.”

“You have to cherish him,” Trump said. “He’s an outstanding person. I’ve gotten to know him so well.”

Like Trump, Robinson cast himself as an uncensored outsider who traded put-downs for policy; a conservative, chest-thumping warrior who seemed to be the beneficiary of limitless forgiveness for his transgressions.

North Carolina Republicans have shown that the MAGA movement doesn’t believe in such limits. But voters will, which is why Republicans and Robinson will stay this way, locked in a doomed embrace, through Election Day. This is what rigor mortis looks like in a campaign.

The only question is whether Republicans up and down the ticket, including Trump, will get dragged down with him. Trump is virtually tied with Kamala Harris in this battleground state and some conservatives are worried Robinson’s troubles will keep Trump voters at home. On Thursday night, GOP candidates running for office in North Carolina were trying to scrub their social media profiles of references to Robinson, like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

The only question is whether Republicans up and down the ticket, including Trump, will get dragged down with him.

A candidate who talks about the historic nature of his candidacy — if he wins, he would be the first Black governor in the state’s history — once allegedly wrote, “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few.” The man whom Trump praised as “MLK on steroids” once referred to Martin Luther King Jr. as “Martin Lucifer Koon.”

Coincidentally, I interviewed Martin Luther King III on Thursday about a trip he’s making to North Carolina this weekend to speak to rural communities of color about the election. The BLN story hadn’t broken yet but the word was out that it contained hateful descriptions of his late father.

When I asked him about it, he was tactful, which isn’t easy when someone says something awful about your dad.

“Clearly, it feels like this rejection is emerging for this candidacy,” King said. “And at some point, it will be looked at as a disaster.”

Why wait any longer? Let’s call it that now.

Billy Ball

Billy Ball is an award-winning journalist from North Carolina and a senior editor at Cardinal & Pinean online news site that covers North Carolina politics. His work has been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and others.

Politics

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

Published

18 hours ago

September 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘We are winning elections’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ progressive wing

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Politics

Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.

Published

2 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.

In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.

Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.

Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.

“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.

Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.

“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.

He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”

Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.

“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”

The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.

In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.

“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.

He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”

The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.

“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.

Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.

“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.

He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”

While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.

“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”

Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.

Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.

“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.

He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”

Politics

Missouri Supreme Court pauses GOP gerrymander, likely netting Democrats 1 House seat

Published

3 days ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.

The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.

Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.