In April 2018, a furniture worker in Greensboro, North Carolina, spoke at a meeting of the City Council to oppose an effort to cancel a gun show and defending the right to bear arms. A video of his four-minute unscripted speech went viral, garnering millions of views and exciting Second Amendment activists across the country. Less than two years later, that factory worker, Mark Robinson, won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of North Carolina and went on to become the first African American to hold the office. Now, he’s the GOP nominee for governor of a state with more than 10 million people and a $30 billion budget.
Robinson is a product of the internet age, turning online celebrity into a political career. And his success has made him the vanguard of a new type of Republican candidate, one for whom political and professional success are not assets, but liabilities.
Robinson was singularly unaccomplished before running for office.
There’s no evidence Robinson harbored political ambitions before he made his remarks to the Greensboro City Council. Though he held strong views, he was not active in Republican politics or the gun rights movement. He didn’t even own a gun. But his ability to clearly articulate the views of millions of conservative gun owners led to a new vocation. He quit his job at the furniture factory and hit the conservative speakers’ circuit, headlining events for groups like the National Rifle Association.
Like Donald Trump, Robinson’s fans see him as a fighter, standing up for average citizens against the “woke” agenda of social justice warriors. He’s tapped into the same resentment of people who feel left behind by a rapidly changing economy and society that fueled Trump’s rise to the presidency. As he told the Greensboro City Council, “The law-abiding citizens of this community, and many other communities around this country, we’re the first ones taxed and the last ones considered and the first ones punished when something like this happens.”
Also like Trump, he belittles his opponents with name-calling and questionable accusations. He called members of the LGBT+ community “filth” and said of school shootings, “Don’t you know the reason why it’s happening is because you have purged prayer from the hallways of those schools?”
But unlike Trump, whose real estate empire and reality TV show made him a household name, Robinson was singularly unaccomplished before running for office. Robinson has sought to turn this into a strength: He claims that average North Carolinians identify with his modest background and financial struggles, including several bankruptcies and an eviction.
Certainly, his lack of experience hasn’t been a liability. In the 2020 North Carolina Republican primary for lieutenant governor, Robinson dispatched eight contenders for the nomination, including the state superintendent of public instruction, a state senator and a former member of Congress. In the general election, he defeated a Democratic state legislator. He won the nomination for governor this year by defeating Dale Folwell, the two-term state treasurer who also spent years in the legislature.
Others political beginners have followed Robinson’s example. This year, Republicans candidates with little experience defeated proven leaders in races for Congress and statewide offices. Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt lost her GOP primary to a woman whose only experience is losing a school board race and homeschooling her children.
Historically, North Carolina voters have elected moderate, experienced politicians to helm their state.
At least four current or former legislators lost to first-time candidates in statewide races. Two other legislators lost primaries for newly gerrymandered congressional seats. State House Speaker Tim Moore, who won the GOP primary in the state’s 14th Congressional District, was the only state legislator to win nomination to a higher office.
Robinson offered unelected Republicans a model for breaking into politics. Traditionally, candidates often built a political resume by starting with a local office like county commission, then serving in the legislature and finally attempting a statewide campaign. Robinson showed them that bombastic rhetoric can be more rewarding than practical experience.
This year, Republicans will learn if the Robinson model translates to top-of-the-ticket races. Historically, North Carolina voters have elected moderate, experienced politicians to helm their state. Recent Democratic governors have included two attorneys general and a lieutenant governor who also served as one of the most powerful members of the state Senate. The only Republican governor this century served as mayor of Charlotte, the state’s largest city.
Robinson, in contrast, has never overseen a budget larger than the $1.5 million one his current office has. The position of lieutenant governor in North Carolina is largely ceremonial with few real responsibilities. Robinson sits on a few boards and committees but has no influence over policy aside from the bully pulpit.
GOP hopes in Robinson lie in the fact that he outperformed Trump in 2020, especially in rural counties with large Black populations, while facing a Black Democrat. Republicans believe that bodes well in a race for governor. They think that conservative Black voters in rural counties will choose Robinson over Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic nominee.
However, races for lieutenant governor aren’t necessarily strong predictors for governors’ contests. In a focus group last fall, only one of 11 members could identify a photo of Robinson. In 2020, Robinson and his opponent spent less than $3 million combined in a year that had presidential, gubernatorial and U.S. Senate contests on the ballot. With those higher profile contests flooding the airways, dominating the digital space and stuffing mailboxes, voters learned little about either candidate.
Over the next eight months, though, millions of dollars will be spent to inform voters about Robinson’s record. They will see videos of him criticizing the LGBT+ community and saying that God called on men, not women, to lead. They will hear about his antisemitic Facebook posts as he faces the state’s first Jewish nominee for governor. They’ll learn that he wants to end women’s access to abortion, despite admitting that he and his wife chose to have an abortion in the 1980s.
Robinson will probably spend a considerable amount of time and money rebutting his own words.
Whether these statements turn off voters remains to be seen. Trump has paid little political price in North Carolina for his most incendiary comments. Some voters might just write off Robinson’s past words as campaign fodder, and Democratic attacks could motivate the GOP base.
Nevertheless, Robinson will probably spend a considerable amount of time and money rebutting his own words. Already, he has sought to soften his public image on abortion. In the coming months, he will downplay his profile as a firebrand and run on his vision and values, because he lacks any substantive experience. Stein, by contrast, will run on a record that includes eight years as attorney general and eight years in the state Senate.
In just under eight months, moderate, often low-information swing voters in North Carolina will let us know if they are frustrated enough to embrace unproven upstarts to guide us through the post-pandemic recovery or if they prefer the steady hand of experienced leadership. And Mark Robinson will find out if four minutes of viral video can lead to four years in the Governor’s Mansion.
