RALEIGH — The North Carolina gubernatorial race heated up this week as Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s campaign issued a cease-and-desist letter to opponent Attorney General Josh Stein over a campaign advertisement.
“This letter puts Josh Stein and his campaign on notice that this advertisement contains false and defamatory information. Both Josh Stein personally and his campaign will bear liability if the advertisement continues to air,” the letter to Stein’s campaign says.
The legal counsel for Robinson’s campaign issued the letter to Josh Stein’s campaign for North Carolina governor on Thursday, signed by Charles Spies and Benjamin Mehr of Dickson Wright PLLC acting as “Counsel to Mark Robinson and Friends of Mark Robinson.”
Robinson’s legal team claims Stein’s recent ad, “Precious Beginnings,” contains false and misleading information about a child care center associated with Robinson.
The 30-second ad was the pinned post on Stein’s campaign account on the social media platform X as of Thursday afternoon. The Stein campaign has not issued a statement on the letter.
The letter disputes several claims made in the ad about a child care center associated with Robinson and his wife, Yolanda Hill Robinson.
“While the childcare center was occasionally cited on technicalities … no official documents state that the childcare center was unsanitary or endangered children,” the letter from Robinson’s attorneys states. “To be clear, there were no loose electric cords or circuits sticking out of the wall at the childcare center.”
Robinson’s campaign counsel demanded that Stein’s campaign stop airing the ad, preserve all documents related to the ad’s publication and a response to the letter within 48 hours.
The letter concludes with a legal warning, “Failure to comply with the demands in this letter will force our clients to seek legal recourse to the fullest extent of the law.”
The Robinson campaign’s letter also accuses Stein of having a “well-documented history of running false and misleading ads.” referencing Stein’s previous legal troubles. They assert that claims about unsanitary conditions and safety hazards at the child care center are unfounded.
This isn’t Stein’s first brush with campaign ad controversy. As the current Attorney General, Stein faced a grand jury investigation in 2022 over a political ad from his 2020 campaign, which his Republican opponent alleged Stein violated a decades-old libel law. Stein’s case was eventually dismissed after a series of legal hurdles.
