CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — There's an unlikely star in Kamala Harris ' push to win North Carolina: Mark Robinson.
The state's embattled Republican candidate for governor, Robinson is featured in conversations this week with Harris volunteers and voters on the phone and at their doorways. Democrats wave signs warning of Trump-Robinson extremism at their press conferences. Billboard trucks circulate in key cities warning that Robinson, also the state's lieutenant governor, is "unhinged." And Harris is running a new television advertising campaign highlighting Donald Trump's history of lavishing Robinson with flowery praise.
No Democrat has carried this Southern state since former President Barack Obama in 2008, whose victory stands as the only Democratic win on the presidential level here in a half-century. But Trump held North Carolina by just 1.3 percentage points four years ago, and it is again emerging as one of the most competitive states in the final weeks before Election Day.
Democrats are betting the weight of Robinson's extraordinary baggage can give Harris the edge she needs to make history.
Both sides concede that a Harris victory in North Carolina would make Trump's path to the presidency dramatically more difficult. The Republican presidential nominee acknowledged the high stakes during a campaign stop on Wednesday.
"We won North Carolina twice, and we gotta win it one more time," Trump told a cheering audience at a Charlotte-area manufacturing plant. "We win North Carolina, we're going all the way."
Trump has stopped mentioning Robinson
Yet Trump made no mention of Robinson at the event as he introduced several VIPs, his second in-state snub of his hand-picked candidate for governor in the span of five days.
Democrats aren't making it so easy for Trump to distance himself from the man he endorsed, granted a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention and described as "one of the great leaders in our country" and "better than Martin Luther King."
Virtually every message that Harris' campaign delivered to North Carolina voters this week featured Robinson, who has been abandoned by many Republican officials — and his own staff — in the wake of a CNN report that detailed explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website. The Republican Governors Association stopped running ads on his behalf this week, and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who serves on the RGA's executive committee, told the National Review on Wednesday that he would no longer be supporting Robinson.
Still, Trump has refused so far to rescind his endorsement. That's even as Robinson, a regular presence during Trump's recent North Carolina appearances, has become he-who-must-not-be-named at recent events.
Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, a North Carolina native, skipped over Robinson as he ticked down a list of the state's most important elected officials during a campaign stop in Charlotte earlier in the week.
The slight didn't go unnoticed. Two audience members shouted out Robinson's name during Whatley's remarks. The GOP chairman didn't flinch.
Both Trump and his running mate JD Vance ignored Robinson during their four combined North Carolina appearances since Saturday. Vance was forced to acknowledge his party's candidate for governor only when he took questions from reporters.
"What he said or didn't say is ultimately between him and the people of North Carolina," Vance said of Robinson. "I've seen some of the statements, I haven't seen them all. Some of them are pretty gross, to put it mildly."
Republicans are concerned about the scandal's fallout
Veteran North Carolina Republican operative Dallas Woodhouse said Robinson's potential impact on the election "is concerning," although he predicted it would have a more serious chilling effect on down-ballot candidates for Congress and the state house, where the GOP is fighting to preserve a supermajority in both chambers.
Meanwhile, some Democrats close to the Harris campaign fear that the Robinson scandal in the governor's race may not be enough to swing North Carolina's 16 electoral votes to the Democratic nominee. The state has been in the party's sights since Obama won here in 2008, but even Obama could not repeat his success in 2012.
There is a sense, at least among some Harris insiders, that Georgia may be Harris' better opportunity in the South.
Still, Democrats point to North Carolina's large suburban and college-educated population — demographics that are trending away from Trump — in addition to a growing Hispanic population and strong base of African Americans, who remain core groups in the Democratic coalition.
Harris' team is hopeful that the continued Robinson fallout, and their intense focus on it during the election's final weeks, will give them a slight advantage — even if only by convincing some would-be Trump voters not to show up at the polls at all. They're also hoping to peel off some of the 250,000 voters who backed Trump's Republican rival Nikki Haley in the state's March primary.
"What is new now, is the attention on Robinson is higher," said Dan Kanninen, the battleground state director for the Harris campaign. "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."
He called North Carolina "an absolute dead-heat tossup."
Robinson's troubles don't dampen GOP enthusiasm for Trump
There were signs of concern about Robinson inside Charlotte's Freedom House Church during one of Vance's appearances this week, although no one said that the gubernatorial candidate's troubles would dissuade them from voting for Trump.
"I can't say I'm confident. It's close," Greg Mills, a Republican school board candidate in Cabarrus County, said of the presidential race.
As a candidate for local office himself, Mills said he's still "inclined to support" Robinson because the gubernatorial candidate has denied the allegations. "If it's true, it's deeply troubling," he said.
Mills said he has "no reservations" about supporting Trump, however.
Sitting not far away in the packed church, Kathy Goodman, 74, of Harrisburg, said she's not sure whether she'll vote for Robinson this fall. But she insisted that Trump is "too good" to be weighed down by Robinson.
"He should not be held accountable for what Mark Robinson did," Goodman said. "They're two different individuals."
Beyond Robinson, Democrats also boast a superior ground game with 27 campaign offices across the state staffed by more than 250 paid field staff and more than 26,000 volunteers — the vast majority of whom joined the campaign after Harris stepped in for President Joe Biden.
The Trump campaign has allowed outside groups to handle the bulk of its on-the-ground voter outreach, while devoting much of its resources to "voter integrity" monitoring once voting begins.
At a Raleigh volunteer center earlier in the week, Democratic volunteer Nancy Watson, 43, spent her lunch break one day making phone calls to prospective Harris supporters. She said she spends almost every weekend canvassing for the campaign as well.
Watson is hopeful that the Robinson scandal will ultimately help Harris, but reflecting on her recent conversations with voters, she said some people still aren't paying close attention.
"You never know what motivates potential voters," she said.
Vernon Daughtry, a 66-year-old volunteer who has retired from careers in teaching and nursing, was making phone calls nearby.
"I'm glad that he's still on the ticket. I hope he brings Trump down," Daughtry said of Robinson. "It's time for North Carolina to elect a Democratic president. It can be done."