Mark Robinson could be on his way to a historic loss at North Carolina

CNN
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It turns out that some things do matter in electoral politics.

CNN's KFile reported last week on Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson of North Carolina who made inflammatory and racist comments on the message board of a porn website. We now have polling data measuring the potential impact of this investigation on the race.

It looks like Robinson will suffer his biggest defeat in more than 40 years as a major party candidate for governor in North Carolina.

According to our CNN/SSRS poll, Democrat Josh Stein is up 53% among likely voters in the Tar Heel State, while Robinson is at 36%. The survey was conducted entirely after the KFile story was published.

Notably, Stein's 17-point lead is larger than his lead in any poll this year. It's significantly larger than the 11- and 10-point leads Stein had in Marist College and New York Times/Siena College polls earlier this month.

While our poll might be an outlier, it would make sense that it would be Robinson's worst poll after The devastating report caused many Republican officials to distance themselves from the lieutenant governor.

A 17-point victory by a Democratic gubernatorial candidate would be nothing short of historic. The last North Carolina Democrat to win a gubernatorial election by a larger margin than Stein in the CNN poll was Gov. Jim Hunt in 1980.

A voting penalty for Robinson of 6 or 7 points fits with what we know about voting penalties after a scandal. For example, a 538 analysis of past scandals that rocked congressional campaigns found an average negative impact of 8 points.

Given the closeness of the presidential election campaign in the state, a gap of 17 points would also be particularly large. In our poll, like many before it, the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is tied. This would suggest that the consequences suffered by Robinson have not hurt Trump to any great extent – political history has shown that an electoral defeat scandal rarely hurts the front-runners.

The fact that North Carolina's presidential-level polls are similar to previous polls is also an indication that Robinson's large deficit is not a statistical anomaly and likely represents the direct impact of KFile's reporting.

If you take a closer look at the latest CNN poll results, the news for Robinson isn't any better. Stein has a larger share of the vote among men and women, among black and white voters, among all age groups, among those earning above or below $50,000, among college and non-college graduates, among independents and moderates.

The only groups Robinson leads are the GOP base of white non-college graduates, conservatives and Republicans.

But even among Republicans, Robinson only gets 74%. A quarter either say they will vote for Stein (12%) or another candidate (3%), or say neither (11%). For comparison: Trump received 94% of the Republican vote in the presidential election campaign. Stein receives 95% of Democrats' support in the gubernatorial race.

A large portion of those who stick with Robinson may only do so because he is a Republican. His favorable rating among likely voters is just 27%. The clear majority, 53%, hold a negative opinion.

Also notable is the fact that 80% of likely voters can form an opinion about Robinson. That's far higher than the 63% who can do so regarding Stein, even though he is the state's attorney general. (Voters like Stein much more, as shown by his 40% positive rating and 23% negative rating.)

Opinion of Robinson is better among Republicans, but only 53% have a favorable opinion of him. A large minority, 25%, hold a negative opinion. Another 19% have heard of him but have not expressed an opinion. It's not hard to imagine that many North Carolina Republicans don't want to talk badly about a fellow party member, but they also don't want to give Robinson a thumbs up.

The bottom line is that it's difficult to see any glimmer of hope for Robinson in the latest data. Yes, he was likely to lose the race long before the scandal broke last week, as polls showed all year long.

But now it doesn't just look like Robinson will lose. It looks like he will be humiliated at the ballot box.