N.C. Republican vows to continue campaign for governor amid fallout from CNN story

Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina, vowed to continue his campaign Thursday amid the fallout over a CNN story about comments he made on a pornographic website’s message board more than a decade ago.

CNN published the story Thursday afternoon, reporting that Robinson had called himself a “black NAZI!” on the forum in 2010 and voiced support for bringing back slavery the same year. Robinson, who has expressed hostility toward transgender people in his campaign, also said on the message board that he liked to watch transgender pornography.

CNN reported that many of Robinson’s comments were “gratuitously sexual and lewd in nature,” and were made between 2008 and 2012 on “Nude Africa,” a pornographic website that includes a message board. CNN said the comments were made under the username minisoldr, a moniker Robinson used frequently online.

Robinson denied making the comments to CNN.

The GOP candidate sought to get ahead of the story with a video he posted on social media shortly before the report’s publication.

“Let me reassure you: The things that you will see in that story, those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” Robinson said in the video, posted Thursday afternoon on X. He ended the video by declaring he is “staying in this race.”

Robinson released the defiant video amid mounting speculation about the fate of his campaign, with some North Carolina Republicans suggesting he should end his bid. North Carolina is set to start sending out absentee ballots Friday.

Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, is running against Democrat Josh Stein, the North Carolina attorney general, in one of the country’s most competitive gubernatorial races. They are vying to succeed term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper (D).

North Carolina is a highly consequential state in the November election beyond the governor’s race, with 16 electoral votes up for grabs. Former president Donald Trump won it by his smallest margin of victory anywhere in 2020, and Vice President Kamala Harris has been targeting it as a pickup opportunity, partly emboldened by Robinson’s political vulnerabilities.

Robinson was already underperforming Trump in North Carolina polls before Thursday despite the former president’s enthusiastic support. Trump has repeatedly praised Robinson, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids” during a campaign rally earlier this year in North Carolina.

After the CNN story published, the Harris campaign recirculated examples on social media of Trump praising Robinson. A Harris campaign spokesperson, Ammar Moussa, wrote on X that Trump “has a Mark Robinson problem.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor,” Stein’s campaign said in a statement after the CNN story was published. “Josh remains focused on winning this campaign so that together we can build a safer, stronger North Carolina for everyone.”

Some North Carolina Republicans said Robinson needed to end his campaign - or provide more of a rebuttal to the CNN story.

“For the sake of the party, for the sake of our down-ballot races … and for the sake of Donald Trump’s victory in North Carolina, I think Mark Robinson needs to drop out,” said Jonathan Bridges, who managed the campaign of one of Robinson’s rivals in the GOP primary, former congressman Mark Walker.

Scott Lassiter, a Republican running in a competitive state Senate race in North Carolina, also called on Robinson to suspend his campaign. Lassiter said in a statement, “North Carolinians deserve a viable choice in this election.”

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told reporters in Washington after the CNN story came out that the “allegations are very concerning.”

“I think he needs to give [a] detailed response that the allegations aren’t true,” Hudson said.

Separately, after the CNN report, Politico published a story that said the same email address that Robinson used for the porn website was found registered on Ashley Madison, a website used to arrange extramarital affairs. A Robinson campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Politico said.

CNN, in its story, said it was only publishing a “small portion of Robinson’s comments on the website given their graphic nature.” In one instance, the outlet said it was omitting “graphic sexual details” as it described how Robinson fondly remembered “peeping” on women in public showers as a teenager.

When it came to slavery, CNN reported that Robinson, who is Black, called for its reinstatement in a 2010 post after commenting: “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves.”

CNN detailed extensive efforts to verify that the username under which the comments were made belonged to Robinson. The network said Robinson listed his full name on the website and an email address that he has “used on numerous websites across the internet for decades.”

Asked in the CNN interview about the evidence linking him to the username, Robinson said he was “not going to get into the minutia of how somebody manufactured this, these salacious tabloid lies.”

Ahead of the story’s publication, few seemed to know what the new information would entail, but Republican officials, including some working on behalf of Trump’s presidential campaign, were pressuring Robinson to withdraw from the race, according to multiple political professionals in the state who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly.

“[The Republican] establishment is reeling and trying to figure out what to do,” one political operative in the state said in a text message. “Robinson is defiant and says he’s staying in.”

A Trump campaign official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly said the campaign is not reaching out directly to Robinson to try to encourage him to step aside.

Michael Lonergan, a spokesman for the Robinson campaign, said in an email that it was “complete fiction” that Robinson was under pressure to drop out of the race. Lonergan later said in a text message that Robinson is “most certainly not” dropping out.

In the video, Robinson quoted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s comment during his 1991 confirmation hearing that he was the victim of a “high-tech lynching.”

“Well, it looks like Mark Robinson is too,” Robinson said.

Robinson’s campaign has been weighted by his long history of incendiary rhetoric, including about a top issue this election cycle, abortion.

More recently, though, he has faced increased scrutiny over his personal life. The Assembly, a North Carolina news outlet, reported this month that he regularly visited porn shops in Greensboro in the 1990s and 2000s, long after he said he became a devoted Christian. Robinson’s campaign called the Assembly story “complete fiction.”

Even if Robinson were to withdraw from the governor’s race Thursday, it is probably too late to remove his name from the ballot, because absentee ballots have already been printed, said Karen Brinson Bell, who leads the State Board of Elections.

An additional complication, she said, is that overseas and military ballots are scheduled to go out Friday, as required by federal law. It would take about two weeks and cost more than $1 million to reprint ballots, Bell said.

“As the chief election officer, I know where we are in this process,” Bell said. “To remove a name from the ballot at this time would be an insurmountable hurdle.”

Bell noted that she thought it was too late to take independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name off the ballot when he requested that several weeks ago, but she was overruled by state courts.

If Robinson does withdraw, the state Republican Party would have the ability to nominate a new candidate, and votes for Robinson would go to that individual, Bell said. But Robinson’s name would remain on the ballot, she said.

If the state GOP sues to have Robinson removed from the ballot, Bell said she would advise the State Board of Elections to oppose that in court.

The Trump campaign’s posture before the CNN story published was to let others call for Robinson to drop out, according to Trump advisers, granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. They previously said in recent days that they did not plan to appear with him because of concerns that he was hurting the top of the ticket.

Robinson canceled an appearance with Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in North Carolina this week, and Vance didn’t mention him.

Harris criticized Robinson while campaigning in the state, including during events there last week.

Robinson experienced a quick rise in politics after a video went viral of him advocating against gun control at a Greensboro City Council meeting in 2018. He launched a campaign for lieutenant governor the following year and won in a crowded GOP primary.

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Paul Kane and Joshua Dawsey contributed to this report.