[2] Robinson made his first bid for elected office in 1962, when he ran as a Republican in Virginia's 7th congressional district, which included his home in Winchester.

After redistricting following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Davis v. Mann as well as Virginia Governor Albertis Harrison's appointment of state Senator Harry F. Byrd Jr. to succeed his retiring father in the U.S. Senate, voters in Byrd's long-held state senatorial district encompassing Clarke, Frederick and Shenandoah Counties and the City of Winchester (previously numbered the 24th (with the new addition of Loudoun County now numbered the 21st) elected Robinson to the Virginia Senate in 1965.

He served as the ranking minority member on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence by the time he stepped down in January 1985.

After his first run for Congress, he only dropped below 60 percent of the vote once, in 1974 when a number of Republicans were unseated due to anger over the Watergate Scandal.

He continued work in the fruit growing and packing business in Winchester until his death from pancreatic cancer on April 8, 1990.