A gun rights enthusiast whose speech before a North Carolina city council went viral has won the state’s Republican party nomination for lieutenant governor, the first African American to ever earn the nod.
Unofficial results show Mark Robinson’s 32.5% of the vote more than doubled that of second-place finisher Andy Wells and exceeded the 30% threshold to avoid a runoff, according to local reports. Robinson, a former factory worker, earned praise from gun rights activists across the country after he delivered a passionate speech to the Greensboro City Council in 2018.
“What I want to know is when are you all going to start standing up for the majority? And here’s who the majority is. I’m the majority. I’m a law abiding citizen who has never shot anybody,” Robinson said during his remarks.
A video of Robinson’s speech was posted on social media by Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Walker and was viewed more than 4 million times.
Robinson laid out more details about his political platform in a recent interview with Fox News.
“Our message is so much more than the Second Amendment, which is a crucial issue,” he said on Saturday. “I believe that we need to purge abortion from our shores for the cause of life the same way that we purged slavery for the cause of liberty.”
Robinson will face the winner of a Democratic primary election for lieutenant governor. Current Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest is running for the executive mansion this fall.
