Why Republicans Couldn’t Stop Mark Robinson

A question that has haunted establishment Republicans for years is whether their extremist candidates could have been stopped. Candidates like Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania and Kari Lake of Arizona beat more electable, business-minded candidates who likely would have carried their states for the Republican Party. More often than not, the success of these MAGA arsonists was inevitable. In the case of Mark Robinson of North Carolina, this fatalism is fully justified.

The political risk that Mark Robinson poses to our state’s Republicans is well documented. Uncertainty over whether he will ever be held accountable for his Everest-sized incendiary behavior appears likely to be resolved in favor of harsh political punishment.

The man and his wife are under investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services for defrauding state social programs, and Democrat Josh Stein has taken a lead in polls for the race for governor in November. The clear trend in this race is that Mark Robinson is losing centrist support and falling behind Stein.

The GOP has willingly engaged itself in this daunting conundrum. According to my longtime collaborator Thomas Mills, Republican lawmakers were practically stunned by Robinson at one point. They believed his race would guarantee massive crossover voting from African Americans in parts of North Carolina.

Even as Robinson’s extremism and toxicity became so blatant that it could blind the untrained eye, most of the Republican establishment continued to support Robinson’s candidacy in the cynical hope that he could prevent a Stein administration and return unified control of state government to their party. Powerful Mandarin lawmakers Tim Moore and Phil Berger went so far as to support Robinson in a competitive primary.

This bravado has now given way to a big “Gulp”. The steady stream of Robinsonian controversies rushes toward a powerful current. Many establishment Republicans have doubts. But the rise of this toxic maniac draws on a current of energy that the GOP created years ago, when the party was first building its legislative majority.

During these years, Republicans followed what I called the “Red State Formula”: They used aggressive social appeals to coalesce their base into a reliable military and, always with the help of of three-dimensional maps, used the resulting electoral victories to reward their donors. with a tax reduction program. It worked well for 13 years, but the deal they made with the Red State Devil now imposes a heavy dose of punishment on them. With their base radicalized, there was never a serious chance that Mark Robinson would lose a primary to serious establishment rivals.

The extreme Republican milieu cultivated in the right-wing corridors of North Carolina made this outcome inevitable. Ready to value belligerence, Republican voters in North Carolina gave Mark Robinson a 50-3 approval rating. He became such an icon in the hills and hollows that his celebrity rivaled that of Donald Trump.

Throughout the primary season, no poll showed Robinson with a lead smaller than dozens of points. And when decision time arrived, the Large Fellow From Greensboro triumphed with more than 60 percent of the vote in the GOP primary. The nervous leaders were done.

In fact, some of North Carolina’s most responsible Republicans tried to stop Robinson. Moderate consultant Paul Shumaker issued memos arguing that Mark Robinson was unelectable with the traditional electorate. Shumaker served as chief consultant for Robinson’s better-funded rival, Bill Graham, in a desperate Hail Mary ploy to stop Piedmont Triad agitators. And in an even more striking move, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis condemned Robinson, rebuking the demagogue’s venom by saying “the feeling is mutual.”

It was all useless. Tillis’ disdain for Robinson is well known in establishment circles, but even if more leaders had the senator’s foresight, the Greensboro Bomber would still have led the GOP field in 2024. As things stand , don’t be surprised when Robinson challenges Tillis himself. in a Republican primary in 2026 – and beat him.

Alexander H. Jones is a political analyst at Carolina Forward. He lives in Carrboro. Do you have any comments? Contact him at [email protected].