Dear MoveOn member,
On Thursday, CNN dropped a bombshell report showing that Mark Robinson, the Trump-endorsed far right candidate for governor in North Carolina, spent years posting vile, racist, and lewd messages on a porn website, even referring to himself as a “Black Nazi.”1
The fallout has left Republicans in North Carolina in disarray and has opened up a real possibility for Democrats to win the state for Kamala Harris in November.
We wanted you to be the first to know that MoveOn has made the decision to move North Carolina into our Tier 1 election target list, and we need your help to make sure we have the resources we need to take advantage of this chance to flip this state blue in November.
The opportunity here is enormous, but we can seize it only if we have the funds to do so. Please, will you donate $7 a week to MoveOn through Election Day so we can supercharge our efforts to win in North Carolina?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a weekly donation.
Here’s our take on the state of play.
Robinson—who the reporting shows referred to Martin Luther King Jr. as a “commie bastard,” revealed he likes “peeping” on women in locker room showers, and expressed his desire to own slaves—is deeply tied to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.2,3 Trump endorsed him and has repeatedly referred to him as someone to be “cherished” and “Martin Luther King on steroids.”4
If we are able to repeatedly remind North Carolina voters about Trump’s close relationship to Robinson, it could convince independent and undecided voters to cast a ballot for Harris.
And we cannot overstate how transformative it would be to win the state.
North Carolina has 16 electoral votes. If Harris takes the state, she would just need to win Pennsylvania and either Michigan or Wisconsin, not both, to win the election.
That creates an additional pathway to the White House and would counteract the Republican efforts to both jam up election results in Georgia and steal an electoral vote in Nebraska.5
We know how close this election is going to be. Any chance to expand our pathways to victory is a chance we must take.
MoveOn is ready to begin running targeted ads, increase our phone-banking audiences, expand our work to recruit voters to triple their impact by ensuring three friends or family members cast a ballot, and much more. But our budget is very tight, and donations have slowed significantly.
Will you help us fuel our efforts in North Carolina and around the country by chipping in $7 a week through Election Day?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a weekly donation.
Let’s be clear: Mark Robinson, like Donald Trump, was already categorically unfit to serve in elected office before these newest revelations.
In the past, he has praised Hitler, denied the Holocaust, called the LGBTQ+ community “maggots” and “filth,” proclaimed 9/11 to be an “inside job,” and declared that women have abortions only because they “aren’t responsible enough to keep [their] skirts down.”6,7 And the Republican Party still stood behind him. And they still are today.
The American people deserve better, and we have a real chance to usher in a brand-new era of leadership, stability, and progress this November.
It’s going to take all of us to win. Please, Kendall, if you are able, start a $7 weekly gift right now to support MoveOn’s election work in North Carolina and across the country all the way through Election Day.
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a weekly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–Mohammad, Amy, Erik, Cecilia, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. “‘I’m a black NAZI!’: NC GOP nominee for governor made dozens of disturbing comments on porn forum,” CNN, September 19, 2024
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/kfile-mark-robinson-black-nazi-pro-slavery-porn-forum
2. Ibid.
3. “Trump has no plan to pull his endorsement of Mark Robinson after alleged porn site scandal,” NBC News, September 20, 2024
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-no-plan-pull-endorsement-mark-robinson-alleged-porn-site-scandal-rcna171988
4. “Everything Donald Trump Has Said About North Carolina’s Mark Robinson,” Newsweek, September 19, 2024
https://www.newsweek.com/mark-robinson-donald-trump-north-carolina-lt-governor-1956650
5. “Republicans are trying to make a last-minute change to the Electoral College to make it easier for Trump to win,” Business Insider, September 20, 2024
https://www.businessinsider.com/lindsey-graham-trump-electoral-college-nebraska-tweak-2024-9
6. “17 of the most batsh*t things N.C. Republican governor candidate Mark Robinson has said,” Advocate, September 19, 2024
https://www.advocate.com/politics/mark-robinson-nc-governor-statements
7. “Mark Robinson’s Long History Of Incendiary Rhetoric Before CNN’s Damning ‘Black Nazi’ Story,” Forbes, September 20, 2024
https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/09/20/mark-robinsons-long-history-of-incendiary-rhetoric-after-damning-cnn-story-a-timeline/
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Will you start a monthly donation to power and sustain MoveOn’s election plan, stop Trump, and ensure Project 2025 is never enacted?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.