Mark Robinson, 58, the former North Carolina lieutenant governor whose 2024 gubernatorial bid collapsed after racist and inflammatory online posts surfaced, filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy earlier this month alongside his wife Yolanda Hill.
The couple reported just $766.98 in liquid assets while facing nearly $800,000 in total debt, according to a Nov. 3 filing obtained by WRAL-TV. Their liabilities include roughly $120,000 in credit card debt, approximately $94,000 in other debt, and about $100,000 from collections accounts.
Robinson and Hill are seeking protection under Chapter 13 of the federal bankruptcy code, which permits wage earners to settle debts over several years while retaining personal property. This marks at least the fourth time Robinson has turned to bankruptcy courts, having previously filed in 1998, 1999, and again in 2003.
The 2003 proceedings revealed that Robinson had failed to file income taxes for the years 1998 through 2002. Before entering politics, he worked in a furniture factory and at an aviation firm, and he has been publicly open about his past financial difficulties.
Robinson served as North Carolina’s lieutenant governor for four years under Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, who was elected to the U.S. Senate last week. Robinson secured the Republican nomination for governor in 2024 but lost by a wide margin to then-state Attorney General Josh Stein after CNN published his decade-old comments from the message board of adult website Nude Africa.
The posts, written between 2008 and 2012, included Robinson’s declaration in October 2010: “I’m a Black Nazi!” That same month, he wrote, “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it back. I would certainly buy a few.”
In other messages, Robinson referred to Muslims as “little rag-headed bastards,” described “peeping” on women showering in a public gym “for about an hour” when he was 14, and expressed enjoyment of pornography featuring transsexual performers because it “takes the man out while leaving the man in!”
Robinson’s campaign never recovered from the revelations, and his loss contributed to a Democratic sweep in North Carolina that helped deliver Senate control to the party. He has not held public office since.