Harris campaign lays out its Mark Robinson strategy in North Carolina

Kamala Harris' campaign advisers say the ongoing Mark Robinson scandal in North Carolina has given them a fresh opening with the state's Black and suburban voters, as they continue to try to tie Donald Trump to the embattled candidate for governor.

The plan, Harris advisers outlined in a memo provided exclusively to POLITICO , involves seizing on the current barrage of negative attention on Robinson and putting resources behind targeting suburban voters in the Charlotte and Raleigh areas, moderate Republicans and Black voters in the critical battleground state. Their messaging will focus not on a CNN report about comments Robinson made on a pornographic website — including that he enjoys "watching tranny on girl porn," and instead will emphasize the controversial candidate's ties to Trump and his "extreme" policy positions.

Scott Falmlen and L.T. McCrimmon, senior advisers to the Democratic Coordinated Campaign in North Carolina, wrote that as the Trump-endorsed Robinson "consumes the political conversation in the state" — and as Trump has begun to quietly distance himself from Robinson — Harris' team will continue to remind voters of the two Republicans' longstanding "mutual support."

The Harris team's research department has "reams and reams of footage of the two of them embracing each other on the campaign trail," they wrote.

"Trump made Mark Robinson, and he will have to answer for him," the advisers said.

North Carolina has remained out of reach for Democratic presidential candidates since Barack Obama won the state in 2008, and it was the state where Trump received his narrowest margin of victory in 2020 — leading Harris' team to see North Carolina as its "top pickup opportunity" this election, Falmlen and McCrimmon wrote. When President Joe Biden was at the top of the Democratic ticket, polling showed Trump had a solid lead in the state — a trend that changed after Harris became the nominee.

While Harris' campaign is unlikely to put money behind reupping Robinson's past salacious and crude posts on a pornographic website called Nude Africa — comments he denies were written by him, but that were deleted after CNN uncovered them — they intend to emphasize policy positions they believe are unpopular with persuadable voters. The memo cites abortion restrictions, support for repealing the Affordable Care Act and abolishing the federal Department of Education as examples.

Though Trump has sought to portray himself as a moderate on abortion, the Harris team is seizing on his recent comments that he will vote against a Florida ballot measure this fall to expand access to the procedure, while Robinson has said women get abortions "because you weren't responsible enough to keep your skirt down."

On Friday, Harris' team launched a new ad in the state featuring those very comments from Robinson — while also including clips of Trump praising the lieutenant governor.

"Defeating the Trump-Robinson agenda will remain a core piece of the Harris-Walz path to victory in North Carolina," Falmlen and McCrimmon wrote in the memo.

Trump is scheduled to hold a rally Saturday afternoon in Wilmington, North Carolina, an event Robinson will not be attending, according to a person with knowledge of the rally plans. Republicans in the state have conceded the governor's race is a lost cause, though Trump has not rescinded his endorsement of Robinson.