Trump team blitzes NC as polling, Robinson scandal flash warning signs for GOP

Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, have invested heavily in North Carolina in recent weeks, hoping to shore up support in the critical battleground as polling data and a scandal in the gubernatorial race suggest the GOP may struggle there.

The Tar Heel State boasts 16 electoral votes and could prove decisive in the event of a close election. While Trump previously carried the state in 2016 and 2020, he did so by slim margins and Vice President Kamala Harris appears competitive there.

“We've won North Carolina twice, and we got to win it one more time, and we win North Carolina, we're going all the way,” Trump said during a Wednesday campaign stop. Trump won North Carolina by 1.3% in 2020. He won the state by 3.7% in 2016. The state last broke for a Democrat in 2008, when Barack Obama flipped it blue.

Trump currently maintains a 0.6% lead in N.C. in the RealClearPolitics polling average, with a razor-thin 47.8% to Harris’s 47.2%. Comprising that figure, however, are several polls showing Harris in the lead, albeit narrowly. The state Board of Elections on Thursday announced that it had removed 747,000 people from the voter rolls over the past 20 months for various reasons, a figure that far exceeded Trump’s roughly 80,000 vote margin of victory in 2020.

While the national polling is not seriously worse for Republicans than it was in past cycles, the GOP’s fortunes appear far less favorable at the gubernatorial level. Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein currently leads GOP Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson by an average of 10.1%.

While Robinson already trailed Stein, a bombshell CNN report last week alleging that the Republican previously made comments on a pornographic website calling himself a “black Nazi” and expressing a desire to own slaves has sent his campaign into a spiral and prompted resignations from key staffers. Robinson has denied making those comments.

Despite its status as a generally red state, it is not uncommon for North Carolina to swing toward the Democrats in statewide contests. Indeed, the current governor, Roy Cooper, is a two-term Democrat who managed to oust Gov. Pat McCrory, R, in 2016.

"Pretty gross"

While the polling disparity suggests a high-degree of split-ticketing, the faltering Robinson campaign could still prove a liability for the national Republican ticket. Indeed, Vance sought to distance himself from the matter of Robinson’s alleged online comments.

“Here's my view on the lieutenant governor. First of all, what he said or didn't say is ultimately between him and the people of North Carolina,” Vance said during an event in Charlotte this week. “The people of North Carolina are going to make that decision.”

“Now, look, I've seen some of the statements. I haven't seen them all. Some of them are pretty gross, to put it mildly. Mark Robinson says that those statements are false, that he didn't actually speak them,” he added. “So, I think it's up to Mark Robinson to make his case to the people of North Carolina that those weren't his statements, and I'm going to let him make that case.”

Vance further indicated that he would continue campaigning with a mind toward national issues of relevance to the people of North Carolina and excoriated the media for focusing on Robinson’s scandal rather than those issues.

“I am much more interested in pursuing policies that correct the problems of Kamala Harris, a sex scandal in North Carolina is between the lieutenant governor and the people of North Carolina,” he added. “They're going to make their decision, and we support them.”

Though he previously appeared on stage with Trump in August, Robinson was absent from his Wilmington rally last week and did not make an appearance during Trump’s Wednesday stop at a Mint Hill manufacturing center. Highlighting Robinson’s absence was the presence of N.C. GOP Chairman Jason Simmons and House candidates Mark Harris and Pat Harrigan.

Trump is focused on issues

Trump, for his part, made no mention of Robinson at all during his remarks on Wednesday and instead opted to focus on the local impact of his manufacturing proposals. He specifically zeroed in on the state's historical position as a furniture manufacturing hub and lamented the decline of the local industry as foreign nations had developed competing industries.

“North Carolina was once the beating heart of American manufacturing. I know it very well. I was here many times to buy furniture for buildings,” he said. “I'd come and I'd look, and there was nobody like the craftsman of North Carolina… and you still have your craftsman here.”

“Unfortunately, they're doing other jobs that they don't want to be doing,” Trump lamented. “They love making furniture… They’re artists. Those people are going to be coming back into the furniture business.”

Trump then vowed to impose tariffs on foreign imports, repeating a key provision of his economic plan that he outlined in a Tuesday speech. Because of the tariffs and his plan to implement a 15% “Made-in-America” tax rate, Trump said, “all of your furniture makers are [going to] come back bigger and stronger and better than ever before.”

Harris sees an opportunity

By focusing on Robinson, Democrats, for their part, do see a credible chance of flipping the state in light of the scandal.

“What is new now, is the attention on Robinson is higher,” Harris campaign battleground state director Dan Kanninen told the Associated Press. “There’s a greater public recognition that he’s so far outside the mainstream, as is Donald Trump, that I think voters now have an opportunity to connect those dots in a way that could stick at a time when voters are starting to pay attention and make decisions.”

Some voters, however, told the outlet that the Robinson issue would not affect their vote for Trump in the presidential election and it remains unclear whether the gubernatorial race could be a significant drag on the top of the ticket.

Also drawing interest for the Harris campaign are the roughly 250,000 Republican primary voters who backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. While Haley has thrown her support behind Trump, some of her backers have broken for Harris.

Just the News has sought comment from the Trump campaign.