North Carolina Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson suffered burns while campaigning for governor, but his campaign said he was in good spirits and would continue campaigning.
MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — North Carolina Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson suffered burns Friday night while attending a truck show while campaigning for governor, his campaign said.
Robinson was appearing at the Mayberry Truck Show in Mount Airy when he was injured, campaign spokesman Mike Lonergan said in a statement.
Robinson was treated at Northern Regional Hospital in Mount Airy for second-degree burns, he added.
“He is in good spirits, grateful for the outpouring of well wishes and excited to be the first to return to the campaign trail as scheduled,” Lonergan said.
Lonergan did not immediately respond to a text seeking details about how and where the burns occurred. Robinson, along with Moore County Republicans, suspended his campaign starting Friday morning. He has four stops scheduled for Saturday.
Robinson, who has served as lieutenant governor since 2021, is competing against Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein, the current attorney general. Current Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, is barred from running this fall by term limits.
Many Republicans have recently distanced themselves from Robinson after CNN reported on September 19 that Robinson had posted strongly racial and sexual comments on online message boards. In the aftermath of the report, 12 staffers who worked on his campaign or the lieutenant’s office resigned.
Robinson, who has come under fire for other inflammatory comments, denied making the messages more than a decade ago and hired a law firm to investigate.
Mount Airy, located near the Virginia border about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Charlotte, is where the late television star Andy Griffith grew up. The community was the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry on “The Andy Griffith Show,” which aired in the 1960s. City leaders have embraced that history through tributes and festivities associated with the show.
