NC governor’s race: Robinson says on radio why he changed his ‘approach’ for new abortion ad

Welcome to the governor’s race edition of our Under the Dome politics newsletter. I’m Dawn Vaughan, The News & Observer’s Capitol bureau chief.

This past week, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump both made campaign stops in North Carolina. And both candidates for governor, Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, gave speeches ahead of the top-of-ballot candidates.

On the same day Robinson was in Asheville with Trump, a group of progressive clergy brought together by Progress NC Action criticized Robinson over his latest campaign ad, in which he takes a new policy position on the state’s abortion law that represents a major change from what he’s been saying for years.

The ad shows Robinson and his wife, Yolanda Hill, talking about the abortion she had many years ago, and then segues to Robinson saying he’ll stand by the current abortion law, which bans it after 12 weeks with exceptions.

“Honestly, I have no faith in Mark Robinson’s new commitment to uphold the state’s current abortion law allowing access up to 12 weeks,” the Rev. Chalice Overy said at a news conference. Overy said that Robinson has “given no explanation of what has sparked his change of heart from earlier in the year, when he outlines a plan to get it down from 12 weeks to six weeks, and then go on from there.”

I did ask Robinson’s campaign for comment about his policy change in the ad, but the response I received was only about the group that organized the news conference. Robinson’s official campaign position before the ad was support of a “heartbeat” ban on abortion at about six weeks.

Then Robinson went on a WBT talk radio show in Charlotte on Thursday to talk about why he did the ad. He said making the ad was “very tough.”

“I have not changed my view about abortion, but I’ve changed my approach to it,” Robinson told WBT, “because I really believe that if I’m a person who is seen as an individual who’s standing on a stage pointing down at a young woman saying, ‘You can’t have an abortion,’ that is not the right approach.”

“The right approach is to come down off the stage, embrace that young woman, and tell them about the reasons why I believe she should choose life, and then ultimately leaving it up to her based on the laws that we have on the books,” Robinson said on “Good Morning BT with Bo Thompson & Beth Troutman” on Thursday.

Robinson said on the radio show that he was willing to do the commercial because in order to win on the abortion issue “we’ve got to show them how deeply it affects people.”

Robinson can only change the state’s abortion law if the N.C. General Assembly, currently completely controlled by Republicans, sends him a new bill to sign or veto, if he wins the governor’s race. But key Republican lawmakers told me earlier this year that they don’t want to pass any further restrictions. It is the legislature that holds the cards.

Will NC abortion law change if Robinson wins as governor? It won’t be just up to him.

Stein and Robinson at Harris, Trump events

Back to the presidential visits, and the gubernatorial candidates who spoke during them. Both speeches included them targeting each other: Stein saying Robinson would be “bad for people” and “bad for business,” and Robinson calling out Stein’s wife for working for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

Harris was in Raleigh speaking to supporters about her economic plan, which you can read more about from my politics team colleagues here in Raleigh.

Trump was in Asheville, a visit covered by my colleagues at the Charlotte Observer. That coverage also includes Robinson’s comments about Stein’s wife, Anna Stein, who is a legal consultant on chronic disease and injury policy at DHHS, the agency told the Observer.

A different part of DHHS has been involved with scrutiny of the former nonprofit owned by Robinson’s wife, Hill, called Balanced Nutrition. Records show that Balanced Nutrition owes the state $130,000, we previously reported.

As I wrote about in last week’s newsletter, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has defended DHHS, which is a cabinet agency in his administration, over Hill and Robinson’s claims that the scrutiny is politically motivated. Cooper said it “is solely the Department of Health and Human Services doing its job in trying to make sure that government money is spent effectively and efficiently.”

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