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This story is published in partnership with Axios Raleigh.

It was growing late on primary election night in March when Bill Graham, a deep-pocketed Salisbury lawyer mounting a late attempt to defeat Mark Robinson in the Republican gubernatorial primary, decided to concede. 

Traditionally, it would have been the moment to let go of previous barbs and throw support behind a fellow Republican, with an eye to unifying for the general election. 

But Graham, despite losing by a significant margin, was still convinced Republicans were sleepwalking toward potential disaster. He was bothered by Robinson’s history of controversial statements and a penchant for what Graham described as pushing “grievance politics” rather than policy. 

No endorsement would be coming. 

“Mark Robinson is an unelectable candidate in the general election in North Carolina, and he puts a conservative future at risk for everyone, from the courthouse to the White House,” he told his supporters and the media that night. 

Six months later—and fresh off a bombshell CNN report—those concerns are playing out in real time as Republicans, both nationally and locally, distance themselves from Robinson and move to contain the fallout. 

The CNN report, the latest in a series of revelations about Robinson, revealed Robinson called himself a “black NAZI!” and a “perv” on pornographic message boards, expressed support for reinstating slavery, and said he enjoyed watching transgender pornography. 

The Assembly reported two weeks earlier that six men said Robinson was a regular customer at Greensboro video-porn stores in the 1990s and early 2000s, which Robinson denied. 

Robinson’s controversies “take up all the bandwidth” and aren’t helping convince independents and moderates that Republicans can help them with policy, Graham told Axios and The Assembly for this jointly reported article. “You cannot win a general election in North Carolina with just Republican votes.” 

He added: “We’re not talking about the economy, we’re not talking about taxes, we’re not talking about the cost of milk and eggs and prescription medication and how folks are gonna pay the rent. We’re talking about this other silly stuff.”

Robinson denied making the comments contained in the CNN story. “You know my words, you know my character, and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race and before,” he said in a video posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. Robinson vowed to stay in the race.

But it was an immediate blow to a candidate already trailing his opponent, state Attorney General Josh Stein, in the polls — some of them by double digits. Earlier polls showed a tight race.

Robinson, in a sign that even former President Donald Trump was distancing himself from someone he had endorsed, did not appear with Trump at a rally Saturday in Wilmington; Trump did not mention Robinson in his hour-long speech. And Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia professor with a much-watched election predictor, moved the North Carolina governor’s race from “leans Democratic” to “likely Democratic.” 

Robinson was already entering the general election with a litany of political liabilities before the CNN article, including old social media posts and statements that included calling the Holocaust “hogwash,” likening gay and transgender people to “filth,” past bankruptcies, inspection violations at a child care center he and his wife ran, and state investigations into his wife’s nonprofit. 

Many Republicans fear his chance to pivot has already evaporated, and they’re moving to protect other candidates from being dragged down by association. The Robinson campaign said Sunday that four top staffers had resigned—the senior advisor, the campaign manager, the finance director, and the deputy campaign manager. WUNC reported that several other staff members also had resigned.

“Never have we seen one of the major political parties put up such a flawed candidate in North Carolina, and probably few places else in America for that matter,” said Rob Christensen, a former political reporter for The News & Observer who covered North Carolina for more than four decades and has written two books on the state’s politics. 

“This is a failure by the Republican Party to vet their candidates,” he added. “Mark Robinson pretty much came from nowhere. He went from working in a factory to the lieutenant governor’s race and running for governor” with few people checking his background.

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Just a few days before the CNN report, Robinson was hoping to steer the conversation away from his controversial remarks when he appeared at a September 17 event with business leaders at CharBar No. 7 in Charlotte. His campaign was shifting its strategy to get him in front of more voters in response to his negative polling, and Robinson admitted it had been tough traveling back and forth across the state at a relentless pace. 

“Don’t let them tell you I’m going to go into office and be some wild, crazy culture warrior,” Robinson said while members of the Hood Hargett Breakfast Club dined on honey-glazed chicken or salmon. Instead, he wanted to talk about how he would bring business-friendly policies to the Governor’s Mansion. 

But the audience wanted to know more about whether he really believed the things he had said on social media and the specific abortion law he would seek in office. 

Mark Robinson speaks in front of a crowd at a breakfast event
Mark Robinson speaks at a luncheon hosted by the Hood Hargett Breakfast Club in Charlotte on September 17. (Alexandria Sands/Axios)

“Now, when I was a social media influencer, guess what mattered? My opinion. When I was an activist, guess what mattered? The group that I was an activist for,” he said in response to a question about whether he favored stricter abortion limits than the state’s current 12-week ban. 

“As an elected official, guess what I have to go with? I have to go with consensus. Consensus has spoken; it said 12 weeks, with exceptions for rape and incest. It is time for us to move on.” 

(Robinson has taken several positions on abortion. He recently told WSOC-TV that he would support a ban on abortion after six weeks.) 

But it’s been hard for potential voters to move on with Robinson, especially when more revelations about his past keep coming out. 

That includes voters like Jessica Graham, 53, the founder of a consulting firm in Charlotte who lives in the suburbs and described herself as fiercely independent when it comes to politics. 

She’s voted in Republican and Democratic primaries and said she wanted to hear Robinson explain his comments about the Holocaust or what he meant when he said abortion was “killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”

She said before the event she was leaning toward Stein but wanted to hear what Robinson had to say.

“Never have we seen one of the major political parties put up such a flawed candidate in North Carolina, and probably few places else in America for that matter.”

Rob Christensen, former political reporter

When she attempted to ask about his comment about women keeping their skirts down, though, a campaign aide quickly tried to take her microphone away. Robinson, however, dismissed the aide’s attempt. 

“What I was speaking about in that instance was abortion, and I was speaking about abortion on demand, which we all know is a thing,” he said. “And the comment that I made was ‘because you couldn’t keep your skirt down.’ Everybody heard that on television, but what they didn’t hear me say—and what my opponent cut out of that blurb—was keep your skirt down or your pants up.”

Robinson said Stein was resorting to the tricks that Robinson had seen as an active social media user and influencer. 

Graham was unswayed. “He still is a social media influencer, right, but he’s got a responsibility for that now,” she said, “and he’s got to understand, yes, I can cut a quote, but so can he, and so that’s not a great excuse.” She is now for Stein. Robinson declined to be interviewed for this article. 

Stein says Robinson is unfit to be governor. “This is a man who says women are not called to lead, and yet he’s supposed to sit in a room with female CEOs who are considering bringing their businesses to North Carolina?” Stein told reporters this month.

“This is a man who says that gay people are filth and that they’re worse than maggots. And a CEO who’s gay [and] who has a business here is supposed to sit in a room with this guy? It’s not gonna happen. And then when you look at employees and workers, they want to be in a state where their freedoms are respected and protected.”

Dale Folwell, the two-term state treasurer who also unsuccessfully challenged Robinson in the primary, said Republicans only have themselves to blame and that everyone should have known the weaknesses of a potential Robinson campaign. 

“Mark Robinson was selected by former President Trump, [Republican Party chairman] Michael Whatley, [Senate leader] Phil Berger and [House Speaker] Tim Moore, who either did or should have complete knowledge of the things that are being said about Mark Robinson today,” Folwell said. “It seems that anyone who has come in contact with him or his family business has been fleeced—and that includes taxpayers and donors.”

Dale Folwell in a suit and tie
State Treasurer Dale Folwell, who ran against Mark Robinson in the Republican gubernatorial primary. (Jade Wilson for The Assembly)

“I just think he’s got a good head on his shoulders,” Berger said of Robinson in November 2023. 

Robinson has had success in raising money. Between January 2023 and June 2024, his campaign reported raising nearly $11.5 million. That far outpaces the $5.6 million and $7.8 million GOP gubernatorial candidates Dan Forest and Pat McCrory raised over similar 18-month stretches in their 2020 and 2016 campaigns, respectively.

That’s unlikely to continue. McCrory, who was governor from 2013 to 2016, said he knows donors who have chosen to sit on the sidelines. “The North Carolina Republican Party should have done better vetting of their candidates, especially at this level, so (that) no one would have been surprised,” he said. 

“Don’t let them tell you I’m going to go into office and be some wild, crazy culture warrior.”

Mark Robinson, Republican candidate for governor

Several Republican leaders, including U.S. Sen. Ted Budd, released statements saying Robinson needed to prove that he did not make the comments reported by CNN. 

Former state Sen. Richard Stevens, a Republican who represented Wake County and is now part of a group called Republicans for Stein, said it will be hard for Robinson to persuade anyone who was on the fence to vote for him. 

Quoting the late poet Maya Angelou, Stevens said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

Robinson’s past behavior “is just divisive,” he added. “The governor needs to bring people together … and even in office [as lieutenant governor], he was divisive.” 

Parker Wilson, 40, who works at a software firm in Charlotte and was previously registered as a Republican, said Robinson’s rhetoric is turning away moderate voters, especially women. Many of her friends, she said, expressed to her that they can’t support Robinson after she joined a Republicans for Stein group and the CNN article was published. 

“It really speaks to the impact of rhetoric,” she said. “A lot of my friends that were originally voting a very good Republican ticket are really evaluating the implications of that.

“The comments that I received [after the CNN story] from people my age, from all across the state, feel similarly that we cannot, especially those of us raising daughters, have an elected official who says what he says.”  

Disclosure: Richard Stevens is a former member of The Assembly’s board, which advises the publication on financial matters. 

Zachery Eanes is a reporter with Axios Raleigh, where he covers everything from statewide business and economic trends to local politics. 

Bryan Anderson is a freelance reporter who most recently covered elections, voting access, and state government for WRAL-TV. He previously reported for the Associated Press and The News & Observer. You can subscribe to his newsletter here.