MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There is yet more fallout for North Carolina's Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, after a shocking CNN report about Robinson last week. The report said that Robinson, who positions himself as a staunch social conservative, posted racist, antisemitic and other inflammatory comments on a porn site more than a decade ago. Most of his campaign staff resigned over the weekend, and now several top aides in his lieutenant governor's office say they plan to resign, too. It is the latest upheaval to Robinson's campaign, but NPR's Stephen Fowler is here to tell us how this could spill over into the presidential race. Stephen, good morning.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So Trump has been to North Carolina twice since the allegations surfaced, including a speech yesterday about the economy. You were at that speech. Has the former president said anything about Robinson?
FOWLER: So no. He was in North Carolina yesterday to talk about manufacturing and the economy. He was at a rally on Saturday, and he's yet to mention anything about Robinson or distance himself. This is even as Robinson's campaign staff has left him. Many top staffers on his official lieutenant governor side are leaving next week. The Republican Governors Association is essentially abandoning this race. And that's important because Trump backed Robinson for the job, helping him win in the primary and boosting him among Republicans. Plus, North Carolina is a top swing state for the presidential race. It still has a notable amount of ticket-splitting. North Carolina really likes electing Democratic governors and Republicans for most everything else.
MARTIN: So - but to that end, though, Robinson has been trailing in the polls against the Democrat, Josh Stein, in the governor's race, while Trump is neck and neck with Harris. So the question, I think, is, could this controversy change GOP turnout, and could it affect Donald Trump's campaign?
FOWLER: Potentially. I mean, on the one hand, Robinson has seen a steady drumbeat of unfavorable developments about him - like other problematic online posts he's made with negative things about Jews, women, school shooting survivors, LGBT people, and more. As you said, he's been down in the polls. I've been to both Trump and JD Vance events in North Carolina in the last week, and voters I've talked to there are not deterred from supporting him and Trump.
But in the final weeks of the campaign, those hard-core partisans aren't the ones who are just tuning in to see this incredible, extreme example of offensive content from somebody that Trump himself boosted, who's also the sitting lieutenant governor. So we're watching to see the impact on persuadable voters who could show up for Kamala Harris or to see if some Republicans just stay home.
MARTIN: So how are Democrats seeking to highlight the connection between Trump and Robinson to their advantage?
FOWLER: For now, Michel, they're not blasting out billboards with salacious details of a candidate calling himself a Black Nazi on a porn forum. Instead, the Harris campaign launched an ad that combines Trump's praise of the lieutenant governor with anti-abortion comments Robinson's made, like saying, for him - Robinson said there's, quote, "no compromise on abortion." For what it's worth, Democrats aren't solely pinning their hopes of winning North Carolina on Mark Robinson messaging. They've been really aggressive with get-out-to-vote efforts and targeted messaging, especially in rural areas of the state, after Biden narrowly lost it in 2020.
MARTIN: So I should mention that this controversy is specific to North Carolina, but this isn't the first time we've seen this dynamic play out with a Trump-backed candidate in a key battleground race, is it?
FOWLER: Correct. This is the latest example of these Trump-backed candidates with incredible baggage that may succeed in base-focused primaries that don't appeal to a larger audience they need to win a general election. It's worth noting that label applied to Trump himself in 2020 and could be for this cycle, too.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Stephen Fowler. Stephen, thank you.
FOWLER: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
