Donald Trump May Not Be Able to Save Mark Robinson in North Carolina: Poll

Former President Donald Trump’s favorability may not be enough to boost North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, as a new poll shows Robinson behind Democrat Josh Stein by 10 points in the battleground state.
Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor who has been endorsed by Trump, has made headlines over the past week amid allegations he made racist and sexist posts on an adult website more than a decade ago. Robinson has repeatedly denied writing the posts and has said he’ll stay in the race.
Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have been heavily campaigning in the state for its 16 Electoral College votes. On Monday, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, appeared at a rally in the state, and on Wednesday, Trump is set to deliver a speech in Mint Hill, outside of Charlotte, while second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband, will speak about the economy in Wilmington.
Forty days ahead of the election, AARP North Carolina released a new poll conducted by Fabrizio Ward and Impact Research, surveying 600 likely voters, with an oversample of 476 voters aged 50 and older, between September 11 and 17.
The poll brings bad news for Robinson’s chances of securing the state’s top seat. It found that Attorney General Stein holds a 10-point lead over Robinson, with 52 percent of the vote to Robinson’s 42 percent, and 6 percent undecided.
Among voters 50 and above, Robinson narrows the gap, trailing Stein by 3 percentage points, 45 percent to Stein’s 48 percent, which is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Newsweek reached out to Robinson’s and Stein’s teams for comment via email on Wednesday.
Voters 50 years and older are the largest voting group in North Carolina, accounting for 64 percent of voters in the state’s 2022 midterm elections.
Regarding the presidential election, the same poll found Trump leading Harris among all voters by 2 percentage points, 48 percent to 46 percent. However, among voters 50 years and older, Trump leads Harris by 9 points.
In a CNN report last Thursday, Robinson allegedly called himself a “Black Nazi,” defended slavery, repeated homophobic slurs and fondly recalled “peeping” on women. CNN did not include many of the posts given their graphic nature.
The following day, The Washington Post reported that “minisoldr,” the username believed to be affiliated with Robinson on the Nude Africa pornography website, also expressed an affinity for Nazi literature.
“Mein Kampf is a good read,” the user reportedly wrote in a thread on book recommendations. “It’s very informative and not at all what I thought it would be. It’s a real eye opener.”