CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — There is an unlikely star in Kamala Harris “push to win North Carolina: Marc Robinson.
The State struggling Republican candidate for governorRobinson can be found in conversations this week with volunteers and Harris voters on the phone and at their doors. Democrats hold up signs warning of Trump-Robinson extremism at their news conferences. Advertising trucks are driving around key cities warning that Robinson, also the state’s lieutenant governor, is “unhinged.” And Harris is leading a new television ad campaign highlighting that of Donald Trump history of lavishing Robinson with flowery praise.
No Democrat has carried this Southern state since former President Barack Obama in 2008, whose victory constituted the only Democratic victory at the presidential level here in half a century. But Trump held North Carolina by just 1.3 percentage points four years ago, and it is again emerging as one of the most competitive states in the final weeks before Election Day.
Democrats are betting that the weight of Robinson’s extraordinary background can give Harris the edge she needs to make history.
Both parties recognize that a Harris victory in North Carolina would make it significantly more difficult for Trump to become president. The Republican presidential candidate acknowledged the importance of the issues during a campaign stop Wednesday.
“We’ve won North Carolina twice, and we have to win it one more time,” Trump told a cheering audience at a Charlotte-area manufacturing plant. “We win North Carolina, we go all the way.”
Trump stopped mentioning Robinson
Yet Trump made no mention of Robinson at the event as he introduced several VIPs, his second in-state snub of his hand-picked gubernatorial candidate in the span of five days.
When asked Thursday whether he would withdraw his support for Robinson, Trump answered neither yes nor no.
“I don’t know the situation,” said Trump, who often denies knowledge of familiar associates or topics after they become particularly controversial, such as the authors of the conservative “Project 2025.”
Democrats aren’t making it so easy for Trump to distance himself from the man he supported, who was given speaking time at the Republican National Convention and whom he described as “one of the great leaders of our country” and “better than Martin Luther King.”
Virtually every message Harris’s campaign delivered to North Carolina voters this week featured Robinson, who has been abandoned by many Republican officials — and his own. staff — following a CNN report which detailed racist and sexually explicit messages on a pornographic website. The Republican Governors Association stopped running ads on his behalf this week, and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkinwho serves on the RGA executive committee, told the National Review on Wednesday that he would no longer support Robinson.
Yet Trump has so far refused to withdraw his support. And this even as Robinson, a regular presence at Trump’s recent appearances in North Carolina, has become the one who must not be named during recent events.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, a North Carolina native, ignored Robinson as he listed the state’s top elected officials during a campaign stop in Charlotte earlier in the week.
The scandal did not go unnoticed. Two audience members shouted Robinson’s name during Whatley’s remarks. The GOP president did not flinch.
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Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance has ignored Robinson in their four combined appearances at North Carolina since Saturday. Vance was forced to acknowledge his party’s candidate for governor only when answering questions from reporters.
“What he said or didn’t say is ultimately up to him and the people of North Carolina,” Vance said of Robinson. “I have seen some statements, I have not seen them all. Some of them are pretty disgusting, to put it mildly.
Republicans are worried about the consequences of the scandal
Veteran North Carolina Republican Dallas Woodhouse said Robinson’s potential impact on the election was “concerning,” although he predicted it would have a more serious deterrent effect on unfavorable election candidates. Congress and the House of Representatives, where the Republican Party is fighting to preserve its position. qualified majority in both chambers.
Meanwhile, some Democrats close to the Harris campaign worry that the Robinson scandal in the governor’s race won’t be enough to swing North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes in favor of the Democratic candidate. The state has been in the party’s crosshairs since Obama’s 2008 victory, but even Obama couldn’t repeat his 2012 success.
There is a feeling, at least among some Harris insiders, that Georgia might be Harris’ best opportunity in the South.
Still, Democrats point to North Carolina’s large suburban and college-educated populations — demographics that diverge from Trump’s — in addition to a growing Hispanic population and a strong base of Afro- Americans, who remain key groups in the Democratic coalition.
Harris’ team hopes that Robinson’s continued fallout, and its intense focus on it in the final weeks of the election, will give them a slight edge — if only by winning over some voters potential Trump not to show up to the polls at all. . They also hope to eliminate some of the 250,000 voters who supported Trump’s Republican rival, Nikki Haley, in the state’s primary in March.
“What’s new now is there’s more attention to Robinson,” said Dan Kanninen, battleground state director for the Harris campaign. “The public increasingly recognizes that he is so far outside the mainstream, as is Donald Trump, that I think voters now have an opportunity to connect those dots in a way that could endure at a time when Voters are starting to pay attention and make decisions.”
He called North Carolina “an absolute draw.”
Robinson’s woes don’t dampen GOP enthusiasm for Trump
There were signs of concern about Robinson inside Charlotte’s Freedom House Church during one of Vance’s appearances this week, although no one said the presidential candidate’s problems governor would dissuade them from voting for Trump.
“I can’t say I’m confident. It’s close,” Greg Mills, Republican candidate for the Cabarrus County school board, said of the presidential race.
As a local gubernatorial candidate himself, Mills said he was still “inclined to support” Robinson because the gubernatorial candidate has denied the allegations. “If this is true, it is deeply disturbing,” he said.
Mills, however, said he had “no reservations” about supporting Trump.
Sitting nearby in a crowded church, Kathy Goodman, 74, of Harrisburg, said she wasn’t sure whether she would vote for Robinson this fall. But she insisted Trump is “too good” to be weighed down by Robinson.
“He should not be held responsible for what Mark Robinson did,” Goodman said. “They are two different individuals.”
Beyond Robinson, Democrats also have a superior ground game with 27 campaign offices across the state staffed by more than 250 paid field staff and more than 26,000 volunteers – the vast majority of whom have joined the campaign after Harris replaced President Joe Biden.
The Trump campaign allowed outside groups to handle the bulk of its voter outreach on the ground, while devoting much of its resources to monitoring “voter integrity” once voting began.
Earlier in the week, at a Raleigh volunteer center, Democratic volunteer Nancy Watson, 43, spent a day on her lunch break calling potential Harris supporters. She said she also spent almost every weekend canvassing for the campaign.
Watson hopes the Robinson scandal will ultimately help Harris, but reflecting on her recent conversations with voters, she said some people still aren’t paying attention.
“You never know what motivates potential voters,” she said.
Vernon Daughtry, a 66-year-old volunteer who retired from his career as a teacher and nurse, was making phone calls nearby.
“I’m glad he’s still on the ticket. I hope he brings down Trump,” Daughtry said of Robinson. “It’s time for North Carolina to elect a Democratic president. It can be done.
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Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Chapin, South Carolina, contributed to this report.