Roy Cooper claims concerns over GOP Mark Robinson as reason for dropping out of VP race

Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) said concerns over what Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson would do when Cooper went out of state to campaign served as a reason why he took his name out of the running to be Vice President Kamala Harris‘s running mate.

Cooper, who is term-limited, was widely considered a top contender for the vice presidential slot on the Democratic Party’s ticket, hailing from the Republican-leaning battleground state of North Carolina. He announced earlier this week that he was taking his name out of consideration and offered insight into the decision on Politico’s Playbook Deep Dive podcast.

“In North Carolina, we have in our constitution — back from the wagon wheel days — a provision that says when the governor leaves the state, the lieutenant governor becomes the acting governor,” Cooper explained, noting that other states also have similar provisions.

He also explained that if he were to leave the state to campaign, it could empower Robinson, who is running for governor in November.

“Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee, is the most extreme statewide candidate in the country right now. I was on a recruiting trip to Japan; he did claim he was acting governor. He did a big proclamation and press conference while I was gone. It was something about support for the state of Israel. It was obviously to make up for all of his antisemitic comments that he’d made, his denial of the Holocaust, that he’d made over the years, but it was a big distraction,” Cooper said.

Cooper said he predicted that if he had been picked as the vice presidential nominee, Robinson would take advantage of the acting governor provision more to boost his own campaign, and it would serve as a “distraction” from the presidential race.

Despite Cooper being out of the running to be Harris’s vice presidential nominee, Democrats say they are hopeful about flipping North Carolina blue in the presidential race for the first time since 2008. With the added enthusiasm surrounding the Harris campaign in its infancy, former President Donald Trump’s campaign has made television advertisement buys in the state to shore up support in the state that voted for him in 2016 and 2020.

The North Carolina gubernatorial race has been rated as a “toss up,” by the Cook Political Report, while the presidential race in the state has been rated “lean Republican.”