Mark Robinson Brings Struggling Gubernatorial Campaign to Durham

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Good morning, readers.

I was taught to avoid writing clichés like “running around like a headless chicken” because they’re overused and often inaccurate.

But as someone who, in a previous job, held the freshly beheaded body of a (free range!) farm chicken while it spasmed and convulsed, I feel comfortable writing that it was exactly the memory that came to mind when Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson told me his campaign is “going better now than it ever has.”

Since September, the Republican gubernatorial candidate has been ghosted by Donald Trump, lost nearly all his campaign staff to a mass resignation, and become the punchline of lowbrow jokes for foul comments (see: “Black Nazi”), unearthed by CNN, that he appears to have left on a porn forum over a decade ago.

But he still got a rather warm welcome last week during the breakfast rush at Durham’s Grill 46, a NASCAR-themed restaurant off Wake Forest Highway.

“Mark! Mark! Mark!” chanted the group of about 60 older and whiter people.

“Well, guys, thank y’all so much for being here. And as always, we give thanks to our lord and savior, Jesus Christ,” Robinson said.

He briefly criticized Gov. Roy Cooper’s response to Hurricane Helene before pulling out the Donald Trump playbook to woo holdouts—asking voters to pick him because of “policy, not personality” and then attacking the press.

The headless chicken cliché, usually used to describe someone chaotically busy, is imperfect because a chicken dies as soon as the head is severed. 

Robinson’s campaign, though, seems determined to mimic the motions of life until at least Election Day.

“The campaign is going fantastic,” Robinson told me.

Read our full recap here. And have a good Tuesday.

—Chase

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