North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein won the state’s gubernatorial race, according to multiple news networks — a predictable outcome after support for his opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, bottomed out in the aftermath of a CNN report detailing his past racist and sexually explicit comments.
Multiple Republican governors withdrew their endorsements of Robinson in the days after CNN published the article, which detailed racist, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ+ comments he had posted on a porn forum. Those comments — compounded with earlier reporting about his personal habits — were the breaking point for many former supporters of the candidate, who initially endorsed him despite other previous controversies, like his support of a hypothetical no-exceptions abortion ban and the disparaging comments he had made toward the Civil Rights Movement.
All the controversies lost him significant support from staunch conservatives who supported Republicans on other parts of the ballot, Morgan Jackson, a strategist and adviser to Stein’s campaign, told NOTUS.