Mark Robinson still GOP favorite, but ECU poll shows challengers gaining

The 2024 Republican primary campaign for governor is getting tighter as the race shapes up, a new poll from East Carolina University shows.

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is still the favorite, with support from 34% of GOP primary voters. But that’s a slip in the polls for Robinson, whom multiple previous polls had found enjoying more than 40% support.

Cutting into his lead in the new ECU poll are Salisbury lawyer Bill Graham (8%) and state Treasurer Dale Folwell (7%) followed by Andy Wells (3%), a real estate developer and former state senator.

The key number, however, is that 49% of GOP voters say they’re still undecided. And if no candidate wins more than 30% of the total vote in a crowded primary, it goes to a runoff between only the top two finishers.

Graham and Wells are both relying on their personal fortunes to boost their name recognition; Graham has been particularly aggressive in spending on television ads starting last month, in advance of the March primary. Folwell, a longtime GOP politician, is banking on his reputation as a fiscal conservative — first in the legislature, and since 2017 as the state’s top financial officer — to carry him over the line.

Possibly helping Robinson, however, is the massive popularity former Republican President Donald Trump still enjoys among North Carolina conservatives. The ECU poll found the presidential primary is not nearly as close as the primary for governor, with 63% of the state’s Republicans saying they want to nominate Trump for the third straight time.

Robinson and Trump are similar: Both political outsiders whose fiery rhetoric about the decline of American society has won them strong support among evangelical Christians in particular.

They’ve also publicly backed one another in their respective 2024 races. And it’s possible that among the half of all GOP voters undecided on the governor’s race, there are many who may rely on Trump’s endorsement when deciding which candidate to back.

The winner of the Republican primary for governor will likely face either Attorney General Josh Stein or former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Mike Morgan in the general election; they’re competing for the Democratic primary in a race where Stein is seen as the favorite of the party establishment.

Inflation and the economy in general are the top priorities voters of all political parties have in mind right now, the poll found, followed by abortion.

Robinson said earlier this year that if elected governor he’d sign into law a full ban on abortion, with no exceptions at all. That would hypothetically be the strictest such law in the nation. Of the 22 states that have banned abortion, all of them allow exceptions to save the life of the mother. Many also allow exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

In recent months Robinson has changed his stance, saying he now supports a ban after six weeks. The current cutoff for most abortions is 12 weeks in North Carolina — approved by GOP lawmakers earlier this year, who said anything more would be too strict — and down from about 25 weeks when Roe v. Wade was still in place. Stein has repeatedly hammered Robinson for his views on abortion.