North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson won the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday evening, according to NBC News, setting up a closely contested race that will test whether his history of derogatory statements will derail his chances.
A former furniture salesman, Robinson went viral after a 2018 speech at a Greensboro City Council meeting. He is also a pastor. Former President Donald Trump called him “Martin Luther King [Jr.] on steroids” in a pre-election rally.
Robinson’s rapid rise has put him on the verge of becoming the first Black governor. But his history of antisemitic comments and other derogatory remarks now looms over the race.
Democrats currently hold the governor’s mansion, but Gov. Roy Cooper is term-limited. Attorney General Josh Stein won the Democratic nomination, per the Associated Press.
As The Washington Post stated, Robinson’s history of offensive comments “stand out even in Trump’s party.”
In 2014, Robinson quoted Hitler on Facebook, and in 2018 he compared protesters tearing down a Confederate statue to Kristallnacht, a night of Nazi destruction that proceeded the Holocaust. That same year he also speculated Marvel’s Black Panther was created by an “agnostic Jew” to profit off of Black people (he actually used a Yiddish slur instead of Black people).
And in 2017, Robinson even posted his thoughts on the viral topic of killing baby Hitler, concluding the Nazi dictator was not the one to target.
“Folks always talk about killing ‘baby Hitler’ to spare humanity from extreme misery,” Robinson wrote in 2017, per Jewish Insider. “But if you really wanna do humanity a favor go back and kill ‘baby Friedrich Engels’ and ‘toddler Karl Marx.'”
Last year, Robinson told reporters of his posts that there “was never any antisemitism intended in those words.” He was adamant that he was not against Jewish people either, vowing “there is no antisemitism standing here in front of you.”
“I apologize for the wording,” Robinson said while marking a “Solidarity with Israel Week” after Hamas’ October 7 attack, per WRAL News. “We’ve dealt with the Facebook posts and moved past them.”
The Raleigh News & Observer also unearthed a 2020 interview where Robinson spoke with a fringe pastor who says the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” include the Rothschild banking family. At the time of his election, the Republican Jewish Coalition called Robinson’s history of remarks “clearly antisemitic.”
It’s not just his antisemitic comments. In 2021, Robinson likened gay and transgender people to “filth.” While many of his remarks were made before he was elected, Robinson made that statement while in office. He’s also repeatedly called former first lady Michelle Obama a man. HuffPost assembled an entire collection of his comments degrading successful women, including Taylor Swift.
Robinson also blamed the initial sexual assault accusations against comedian Bill Cosby on “the Illuminati.” Last year, CNN uncovered other posts where he defended the shooting of Kent State Protestors, an act the Nixon administration concluded was unjustified.
Trump could make all the difference.
The former president carried the state by less than two percentage points in 2020. A former GOP official told Politico that Stein would likely win in November if Trump performs similarly this year. But if the former president can run up the score, he could push Robinson to victory.
Before former Gov. Pat McCrory’s election in 2012, Republicans hadn’t won a gubernatorial contest in nearly three decades. Stein has also massively outraised Robinson. According to their campaigns’ most recent reports, Stein had roughly $12.7 million on hand while Robinson had just under $4.5 million.
A representative from Robinson’s campaign did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
