OPINION | Biden May Lose Arizona and Georgia, But Republicans Seem Eager to Just Hand Him NC
State's toxic Republican gubernatorial candidate could drive up voter turnout
When President Biden carried Arizona’s electoral votes in 2020, it was the first time the state put a Democrat in the White House since Bill Clinton won the state in 1996.
And just the second since Harry S. Truman won in 1948.
In Georgia, Biden was the first Democrat to win the Peach State in a presidential election since Clinton in 1992.
But despite seeing some improvements in a number of battleground states following a much-praised State of the Union address, an extended campaign swing, and a blitz of political advertising, Biden continues to struggle in both those states.
It's an open question whether presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump will snatch back Arizona and Georgia in the pair’s expected November rematch.
While Arizona and Georgia may slip through Biden’s fingers this year, Republicans appear determined to gift him with a different prize: North Carolina.
Biden came up just short in the Tar Heel State, in 2020, narrowly losing to Trump by little more than 1 percentage point.
Four years later, North Carolina Republicans seem to be doing all they can to tilt the state’s 16 electoral votes to the Biden column.
How are Republicans accomplishing this fear of reverse political jiu jitsu?
Two words: Mark Robinson.
Robinson is North Carolina’s deeply toxic Republican lieutenant governor, and as of Super Tuesday earlier this month, his party’s nominee for governor.
And to call Robinson “deeply toxic” honestly is an understatement.
Robinson has promoted various far-right conspiracy theories, has engaged in Holocaust denial, and has often made inflammatory anti-LGBT, antisemitic, racist, anti-atheist, and Islamophobic statements.
He's gone so far as to quote Nazi Adolf Hitler.
Robinson’s rhetoric would be abhorrent in any case.
But in a state where Democrat Barack Obama won as recently as 2008, and Democratic governor Roy Cooper won reelection in 2020 by nearly 4.5 points?
Using language like that which Robinson seems to revel in not only is loathsome, it’s courting political suicide.
With Cooper term-limited, Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein is running for governor and plans to make Robinson’s hateful rhetoric an issue every step of the way.
Most North Carolinians hardly are fire-breathers themselves. When it comes to the November election, they’re going to recoil at Robinson and what he stands for and especially Democrats and independent will come out in droves to defeat him.
And we could find that much of that wave of anti-Robinson voters also will pull the lever for Joe Biden. And while Arizona and Georgia could be going the other way on Election Night, Biden will be reelected having won the added prize of North Carolina.
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