Politics

On North Carolina’s Mark Robinson, did Vance miss the memo?

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

On North Carolina’s Mark Robinson, did Vance miss the memo?

About a month ago, as North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was mired in scandal and losing GOP support, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether he’d pull his endorsement from his party’s gubernatorial nominee in the Tar Heel State.

“Uh, I don’t know the situation,” the former president replied.

Last week, while campaigning in North Carolina, Trump was asked again about whether he continued to support Robinson’s statewide candidacy. “I’m not familiar with the race,” he said. “I haven’t seen it.”

The answers were unsatisfying, but they were at least rational. Trump is certainly a highly provocative and unpopular figure in his own right, but Robinson has become politically radioactive. It didn’t surprise anyone to see the former president — who’d previously championed the lieutenant governor’s bid — keep the gubernatorial hopeful at arm’s length.

What was surprising was when Trump’s running mate, just days later, did the opposite.

Campaigning in North Carolina, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance — unprompted — said at an event, “I want to give a shoutout to — you guys have a great lieutenant governor.”

A moment later, looking down at his notes, the Ohio senator added, “Sorry, um, we got — sorry. Mark isn’t here.”

That was, to be sure, a rather awkward moment, with Vance apparently expecting Robinson to be on hand for the event, only to learn otherwise in real time. But putting the clumsiness aside, there was a larger question hanging overhead:

Since when does the Trump campaign tout Robinson as “a great lieutenant governor”?

We are, after all, talking about a right-wing candidate who reportedly posted to a porn forum, described himself as a “Nazi,” argued that slavery wasn’t necessarily a “bad” thing and had positive things to say about Adolf Hitler’s book, among other things.

While the GOP candidate has said the reporting is wrong, Blue Light News also reported that user data showed “that the person using the ‘Nude Africa’ account that reportedly belonged to Robinson had accessed the porn website from a location not far from Robinson’s home.”

A great many Republicans have found the meticulously reported allegations credible. Indeed, much of Robinson’s campaign staff — who were apparently unbothered by all of the earlier revelations about the radical candidate — resigned en masse last month.

They weren’t the only ones who jumped ship. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, the senior senator from Robinson’s home state, indicated that he’s not going to vote for his party’s gubernatorial nominee. Around the same time, two Republican governors — Georgia’s Brian Kemp and Tennessee’s Bill Lee — withdrew their Robinson endorsements.

So, why is it exactly, that Vance still thinks he’s “great,” even as his running mate avoids saying Robinson’s name out loud?

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

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.”

Politics

Top GOP groups scale back North Carolina spending

Published

58 minutes ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Leading Republicans are pulling back from the North Carolina Senate race, sending a clear message: What was a top-tier battleground at the start of the cycle is no longer worth the money.

The foremost Senate GOP super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, is pausing its future spending in North Carolina and instead launching a seven-figure ad buy in deep-red Kansas, according to one person familiar with the move. The news was first reported by Semafor.

The dramatic change in strategy — less than four weeks before the midterms — comes after SLF previously spent more than $30 million to boost GOP nominee Michael Whatley. It also comes as public polling has continued to show Whatley unable to close the gap against popular former Gov. Roy Cooper, the Democratic candidate.

Republicans are now deprioritizing a state that President Donald Trump carried in all three presidential runs, and that Democrats haven’t won in the Senate since 2008.

“We are all clear-eyed about where North Carolina stands,” said one national GOP operative working on Senate races, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

SLF isn’t the only major GOP group shifting away from North Carolina as Republicans focus on other must-win seats and deep-red states, amid the Iran war, high fuel prices and other economic fallout of the war in Iran.

Earlier Friday, the Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity Action left North Carolina off its $22 million list of future spending across key Senate contests, as POLITICO reported. Another major Republican group focused specifically on boosting Whatley — Old North Action — removed $6.5 million in ad reservations from North Carolina’s Senate race last month.

“Michael Whatley is a good man who took one for the team — but with states like Alaska, Kansas, and Texas requiring continued resource commitments, there is only so much,” said another national GOP operative working on midterm races. “Especially against a very popular former Governor in Roy Cooper.”

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is currently running coordinated ad reservations with six of its battleground candidates. Whatley in North Carolina is not one of them, according to data from advertising tracking service AdImpact.

NRSC regional press secretary Nick Puglia said in a statement that “Whatley will put North Carolina families first by cutting taxes and keeping criminals locked up.”

Whatley for months has struggled to boost his name ID against the much better-known Cooper. Some recent public polls show Cooper leading Whatley by double-digit margins. Private polling has also hardly budged, despite the recent influx of spending, according to a person working on the race.

In a statement, Whatley spokesperson DJ Griffin said the team feels “confident we have the resources” to win in November.

“Roy Cooper recently said about federal elections in North Carolina, ‘Democrats are often ahead until they are not,’” Griffin said. “Undecided Voters who break late decide the election in North Carolina and the majority of those Late-Breakers typically go Republican.”

AFP Action and Old North Action did not immediately respond to a request for comment about North Carolina. SLF declined to comment.

SLF’s decision came as a shock to some, but not all, North Carolina Republicans — mostly because Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been scheduled to be in North Carolina for an event with Whatley on Thursday night. Thune ended up joining the event virtually, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

For weeks, top Republicans acknowledged North Carolina may be slipping away. One Republican who attended a donor meeting with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and SLF during the Dallas convention told POLITICO that holding the state would be “tough.”

“The map has shifted a little bit, and to be fair, we knew that was going to be a tough one from the beginning,” said one GOP operative working on Senate races, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the landscape.

Democrats are not letting up, recognizing that the contest in the purple state could still be close.

“A Democrat has not won statewide federal office here in nearly two decades, and North Carolina is a 50-50 state,” Cooper campaign manager Jeff Allen said in a statement.

“We’re building a campaign to earn every vote and make sure North Carolinians know that Roy Cooper will fight for them, while Michael Whatley will continue to enrich himself at their expense,” Allen said.

One North Carolina GOP strategist said that while Whatley has been a “fine” candidate, the current political climate coupled with Cooper’s long record in the state may be too much to overcome. And while Republicans have repeatedly hammered Cooper on crime, he still has strong favorability ratings from his time as governor.

“He’s really kind of hard to paint as a radical, ’cause, you know, he’s like Aunt Martha. She’s just been there forever. And so it’s just very difficult to get any traction on that, because, you know, people say, ‘well, Roy’s okay,’” they said.

When told that SLF was moving money from North Carolina to Kansas, the strategist responded: “$6.50 diesel fuel will kick your ass.”