More polling, more resigning, more back-stabbing. (Just another day on the NC campaign trail.)
Who needs their afternoon “stories” when you have the North Carolina political silly season available? General Hospital and Ryan’s Hope can’t hold a candle to all this.
New polling.
Long-time conservative pollster Tony Fabrizio and Democrat pollster John Anzalone have collaborated to bring us all their take on the current situation in North Carolina politics. (Their polling was done from 9/11 to 9/17 — prior to the breaking of the CNN story. AARP appears to be the client.)
Here’s what they found. Donald Trump leads Harris 48 to 46 percent when voters were asked to 
consider all five candidates who will be on the ballot. When asked just about Trump and Harris, the margin went to 50-47 percent in favor of Trump.
Democrat Josh Stein leads Republican Mark Robinson in the gubernatorial race 52 to 42 percent.
Stein is supported by 90 percent of Democrats, while Robinson has the support of 83 percent of Republicans. Stein leads by 19 percent with voters 18-49, while leading by only 3 percent with voters 50 and older. Interestingly, Robinson leads by 9 percent with white voters, while Stein leads by 71 percent with black voters. Robinson leads by 20 percent with white voters 50 years of age and older. He also leads by 3 percent with voters who do not have a college degree.
(For what it’s worth, we’re hearing Team Robinson’s internal polls currently show a 7 point lead for Stein.)
They also took a look at the race for attorney general. The survey finds Democrat Jeff Jackson leading Republican Dan Bishop 47 to 43 percent. Bishop has a five point lead among voters 50 and older, while Jackson has a 15 point lead with voters under 50.
Jackson has a 10 point lead with women, while Bishop has a 2 point lead with men. Bishop has a 16 point lead with white voters, while Jackson has a 66 percent lead with black voters. Among voters 50 and older, Bishop has a 29 percent lead with whites while Jackson has an 80 percent lead with blacks. Bishop has a ten percent lead among voters who don’t have a college degree.
The Fabrizio-Anzalone poll finds Republicans leading the generic congressional ballot in North Carolina by 48 to 47 percent.
More resigning.
We all heard about the mass resignations from the Robinson campaign. Now, it appears the quitting disease has spread to the lieutenant governor’s office. According to drive-by reports, FOUR key staffers in the lieutenant governor’s office have said they are quitting really, really soon.
More back-stabbing.
We’re also hearing that some of the quitters are leaning really hard on remaining campaign staffers and volunteers to stop trying to save the sinking S.S. Robinson. We’re hearing reports about staffers and volunteers being locked out of offices and campaign warehouses. We’re hearing reports about statements being made kinda like this one: “If you ever want to work in Republican politics again, you’ll drop it and walk away.”
Quitting is one thing. But quitting and then attempting to sabotage your former employer is seriously not cool. If you’re unhappy about how the fallout from the CNN story has been handled, it’s fine to express your displeasure by walking away.
I understand that some of these quitters knew for quite a while about serious problems that could up-end the Robinson campaign. They did a good job of keeping mum and collecting their paychecks then. They could have said something way-back-when and got Robinson to either correct the problem or back out of the race. They could have saved state Republicans and Robinson’s family from a lot of embarrassment and grief. But, instead — while things were good financially and politically for them — they said nothing. (Meanwhile, Balanced Nutrition is still lurking out there.)
We tried to tell key people in Raleigh nearly two years ago about some potential problems that could prove fatal to the man’s political career. Of course, we got laughed at and dismissed. And now HERE WE ARE.
You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
We’ve all been played including Folwell. All a set up from the very beginning. Seems like some folks including candidates knew of Robinson’s penchant for tranny porn among other aberrations BEFORE THE PRIMARY.
Think about it. Why not try to defeat Robinson then? Because he was too strong to beat in the primary esp over Folwell and Graham?
Or did Bill Graham the Tillis endorsed candidate play the useful role Garland Tucker played? Why threaten Robinson to drop out or else? Isn’t that blackmail? Where’s our AG candidate? Why only release the info to CNN at the very brink? Why cause irreparable harm to our state?
Because a certain Total Tyrant wants the Gov job in four years and wants Robinson out of the way and so destroyed that he’ll pose no threat in 26 (Senate) or 28 (Gov)?
Who has the power to force people to leave their jobs in the Lt Gov office? Over what? Porn allegations? Funny no one at NCGA left over Moore’s or Saine’s much more serious actions.
Where is Hal “Folksy” Weatherman? Hanging out with Sheriff Andy at the Snappy Lunch?
Why did Heather Whillier, fundraiser for Hal and Dan Bishop, abandon ship?
We’ve been played for fools. Worse. We ARE fools.
From the DNC masquerading as a news outlet WRAL https://www.wral.com/story/trump-needs-to-suffer-the-consequences-for-mark-robinson-cooper-says/21642583/
It is ALL about taking down Trump.
Only Republicans drape the shawl of “ethics and integrity” 40 days out from the most consequential election of our lifetimes. Only Republicans, including many of you on this platform. start screeching about “principals” as if the entire political class is not one big grift. Only “principled” Republicans would take Thom Tillis’ concerns as Gospel. ( Thom’s Big Farm buddies certainly do not want RFK Jr poking around in their poisonous antics, now do they).
And notably not a single Democrat, arguably the most radical people to ever hold office with their gender bending, viciously anti-White DEI, open borders, throw its political opponents in jail platform, would EVER commit such political suicide 40 days out. Admirably, they just march along. In lockstep. They are singularly focused on WINNING. They play to WIN. They play to DESTROY. While y’all just F around, on “principles.” And the bastards in Raleigh tuck tail and run. (Has the NCGOP run one ad this cycle?)
So, when North Carolina becomes Haiti or Venezuela, when your sons have nothing, when your daughters are raped in the two gender bathrooms or just walking down the street, when you lose your house due that “unrealized tax gains” code zinging your way, Republicans can smugly fall back on their “principles.”
And, yes, here we are.
I implore you to get your heads out of your “principled” asses, Table the justifiable outrage until Nov 6. Get OFF your ass and work at your local NCGOP office.
We MUST win in November.
Fight now or we perish.
The NCGOP leadership let us down badly on Robinson. Now he presents a real danger to the entire ticket. Whatley looked the other way, and his handpicked replacement did, too, as well as even putting out a statement backing Robinson instead of joining Trump in telling him to get out. We need a very thorough housecleaning at NCGOP.
A disaster from every angle. Both Robinson’s supporters and detractors in the party failed us at a critical time. We won’t know the extent of the damage until election day. The GOP’s political consultant class also needs to answer for this debacle.
We also need to find out who in NC advised Trump on his endorsements, as Robinson was not the only bad one. I have been told that those endorsements were at least run by Michael Whatley and got his approval. If that is so, he has some ‘splainin’ to do.
Mark Robinson own endorsements show he is not the conservative he claims to be. In 2022, when a conservative female former legislator was gearing up for a primary challenge to liberal RINO Sen. Jim Perry. Robinson came out of the blue to endorse Perry. Perry not only voted liberal and was a flack for the special interests, but he took leadership roles on key liberal issues like the Green New Deal and the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, as well as Berger’s casino folly. Then when conservative former House member Mike Speciale filed against Perry this year and Perry decided to promote another candidate instead of running himself, Robinson jumped in again and endorsed Perry’s chosen successor. This is not conservative behavior, and my support of Robinson has always been of a “hold my nose” nature because his opponent is so awful. I wish we had a nominee we could depend on like Dale Folwell. Robinson sticking his fat stinking nose into local primaries that he clearly knew nothing about made it very hard for me to hold my own nose for Robinson.