MArk Robinson.Photo:Dylan Hollingsworth/Bloomberg via Getty
Dylan Hollingsworth/Bloomberg via Getty
Here’s what to know about Robinson, 55, ahead of the November election — where he will face off with the state’s Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein — including some of the politician’s most alarming remarks.
He is North Carolina’s lieutenant governor
Robinson has served as the lieutenant governor of North Carolina under Democrat Roy Cooper since 2021, in what is largely a ceremonial role. Unlike in states where governors select their own running mates, North Carolina elects its governor and lieutenant governor separately.
Heannouncedhis candidacy for governor last April and, in March 2024, officially became the Republican gubernatorial nominee after defeating attorney Bill Graham and state Treasurer Dale Folwell in the primary.
Rush Limbaugh inspired him to get into conservative politics
Robinson has attributed his foray into politics to late conservative radio hostRush Limbaugh, whom he once toldWRAL Newshelped him realize “that I was conservative and always had been.”
He rose to political prominence in 2018, when he gave a strongly worded speech on gun rights before the Greensboro City Council that ultimately went viral, cementing his support among conservatives.
He would go on to be a frequent speaker at pro-gun rights events, and became an ally of former PresidentDonald Trump, with whom he has appeared at rallies andreceived an endorsementfrom.
He said he would go back to a time when women couldn’t vote
Speaking at a Republican Women event in North Carolina, Robinson said he would “absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote,” in response to a question asking: “Which America would you want to go back to? One where women couldn’t vote or one where Black people were swinging from trees?”
Answering the question, Robinson said, “Because in those days we had people who fought for real social change, and they were called Republicans, and they are the reason why women can vote today.”
He once derided school shooting survivors as “spoiled little b—–ds”
Robinson has also courted controversy for remarks he made following the2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Schoolin Parkland, Florida, when a gunmankilled 17 people, including students and teachers. On Facebook, Robinson lambasted the teenaged survivors who were advocating for stricter gun control policies, calling them “spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN,” “spoiled little b—–ds,” and “media prosti-tots,“CNN’s KFilereported.
In anotherpostpublished just six days after the shooting, Robinson shared a photo of a group of the survivors along with the caption: “The look you get when you let the devil give you a ride on a river of blood to ’15 minutes of Fameville.’”
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CNN also reported on a 2018podcastin which Robinson spoke about gun violence protestors, drawing a comparison to the 1970 shooting of unarmed students at Kent State during a Vietnam War protest.
“We need some politicians in office in some of these cities that’s gonna let people know from the get-go, you go in the street and block traffic, if you block buildings, if you destroy property, you are going to be dealt with swiftly and harshly,” Robinson said in the podcast. “We are not going to tolerate it.”
He has denied the Holocaust and once quoted Hitler in a Facebook post
In a2014 Facebook postthat’s surfaced in recent months, Robinson challenged his followers to guess “who said it,” before quoting Adolf Hitler.
Robinson has denied the Holocaust in multiple other Facebook posts, once implying that 6 million Jewish people were not murdered, and separatelywriting, “this foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.”
He later walked that statement back in his 2022 memoir, writing, “It did come out wrong. I knew the truth of what I was trying to say, but I should have chosen different words.”
Robinson’s gubernatorial opponent, Democrat Josh Stein, is Jewish, with his campaign stating that given his history of offensive remarks, “This is as close as he should ever get to being governor.”
He delivered sermons littered with anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, including calling transgender and gay people “filth”
Remarks Robinson has made to church congregations about the LGBTQ community have also resurfaced amid his gubernatorial run.
Speaking at Asbury Baptist Church in June 2021, Robinson said, “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth. And yes, I called it filth.”
In a 2023sermon, Robinson spoke similarly, saying, “Makes me sick every time I see it, when I pass a church that flies that rainbow flag, which is a direct spit in the face to God Almighty.”
In previous Facebook posts, his rants about the LGBTQ community were similarly hateful, in one calling homosexuality a “filthy abomination” and “degenerate, un-natural lust,” and inanothersuggesting that gay rights will bring about the end of civilization.
source: people.com
