Harris makes scandal-plagued Republican the star of her campaign to win North Carolina

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — There’s an unlikely star in Kamala Harris ' push to win North Carolina: Mark Robinson.

The state’s embattled Republican candidate for governor, Robinson is featured in conversations this week with Harris volunteers and voters on the phone and at their doorways. Democrats wave signs warning of Trump-Robinson extremism at their press conferences. Billboard trucks circulate in key cities warning that Robinson, also the state’s lieutenant governor, is “unhinged.” And Harris is running a new television advertising campaign highlighting Donald Trump’s history of lavishing Robinson with flowery praise.

No Democrat has carried this Southern state since former President Barack Obama in 2008, whose victory stands as the only Democratic win on the presidential level here in a half-century. But Trump held North Carolina by just 1.3 percentage points four years ago, and it is again emerging as one of the most competitive states in the final weeks before Election Day.

Democrats are betting the weight of Robinson’s extraordinary baggage can give Harris the edge she needs to make history.

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