RICHMOND COUNTY, N.C. — North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson held a campaign rally in Richmond County on Wednesday, less than one week before the 2024 election.
Robinson, who is a Republican, is facing Attorney General Josh Stein to be North Carolina's next governor. Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat who has called Robinson "extreme," is wrapping up his second term and can't run for the office again in 2024.
Robinson's event was held at the Berry Patch on Cargo Road in Ellerbe, North Carolina.
The rally comes one day after Robinson's campaign was sued in Stanly County by a polling company that claimed Robinson owes over $114,000 in unpaid invoices. A spokesperson for Robinson's campaign called the lawsuit "completely baseless" and said the campaign has resolved all invoices for previous work from the company.
Robinson has been in national headlines over a recent CNN report alleging he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website message board. Robinson sued CNN in response to the report, which led many Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, to distance themselves from Robinson in North Carolina. A recent Marist poll showed Stein with a 14-point lead over Robinson.
On Wednesday, a reporter asked Robinson if he spoke to Trump since the CNN story broke. Robinson said yes, and that his message was to, "keep going, keep fighting, [and] win this race."
Robinson also told reporters after his rally on Wednesday that his campaign thinks the polls are incorrect. "We have a great chance of winning this race," he added.
Robinson said the public and media should not believe the CNN report, and instead focus on the policies he is promoting.
"People don’t care about salacious lies that supposedly happened 15 years ago," Robinson said. "They don't care about Facebook posts from 10 years ago. What they care about is how they're gonna feed their families."
Robinson will make a stop in Taylorsville on Thursday night and will continue his campaign trail across the state to rally Republican voters through Sunday.
Stein also held his own rally in Raleigh Wednesday. He stuck to his achievements as the state's attorney general, among them clearing the backlog of untested rape kits and securing opioid settlement funds. But he also dug into why he and Harris are both fit for office and why Robinson isn't.
"Our vision, Kamala Harris' vision, is positive, forward-looking, welcoming," he said. "To keep that path of progress we must win races up and down the ballot."
Stein slammed Robinson for repeating claims about the 2020 election, among other things.
"[Robinson] denies that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. [Robinson] denies the climate crisis that devastated western North Carolina," Stein said.
Contact Julia Kauffman at jkauffman@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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