North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. the GOP candidate for governor is being urged to drop out of the race by his staff, and members of the Trump campaign.
According to National Review writer Audrey Fahlberg, CNN is about to publish a story about "unsavory comments Robinson made in several online chatrooms."
Meanwhile, the Carolina Journal reports that "Robinson is under pressure from staff and members of the Trump campaign to withdraw from the governor’s race due to the nature of the story, which they say involves activity on adult websites in 2000s."
The adult bookstore and website story broke earlier this month in The Assembly, a state political publication. Louis Money, who worked in several of Greensboro’s "windowless, 24-hour video-pornography stores" was interviewed for the story along with several ex-employees and customers who say they knew Robinson back in the day.
The website reported that "Robinson campaign spokesperson Mike Lonergan told The Assembly in an email that Money’s claims were 'bull**it' and a 'complete and total fiction.' He called Money and The Assembly’s reporters 'degenerates.'"
“This false and personal attack on my boss is complete fiction,” Lonergan wrote.
Indeed, the allegations are 20 years old and, even if true, amount to minor hypocrisy. It's the comments Robinson allegedly made in online chat rooms that could prove to be his undoing.
According to the sources, the campaign of Attorney General Josh Stein, Robinson’s opponent in the race for North Carolina’s Executive Mansion, leaked the story to CNN and local Raleigh news outlet, WRAL. It is expected to hit airwaves later on Thursday.
Also according to the anonymous source, earlier this week leaders in the Trump campaign privately told Robinson that he was not welcome at rallies for Trump or vice presidential candidate JD Vance. He was slated to speak at the Vance appearance on Wednesday, but his office announced that Robinson had tested positive for COVID.
Should Robinson decide to withdraw from the race, something that Carolina Journal’s sources say he is opposed to at the moment, the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee would need to choose a replacement candidate for November.
“I spoke to Mark this morning and he was prepared to go on CNN and defend himself against the allegations,” Jason Williams, a partner in Endgame Consulting, the agency handling Robinson’s campaign, said in a text response to a question.
“The main ones I remember were that they were alleging he made some extremely racist comments about Martin Luther King, referred to himself as a Black Nazi, and used antisemitic language referring to Jews,” Williams stated in the text message.
It won't matter how long ago he posted that online, referring to yourself as a "black Nazi" is pretty much the ballgame.
Robinson denies making those statements. “He 100% denied it when I spoke to him,” says Williams.
At a lunch with business owners in Charlotte this week, Robinson said he is very pro-Israel and denied holding anti-Semitic views.
While Endgame is working on the campaign, Williams said he is not officially working on Robinson’s campaign team.
The latest polls have Stein up by 5-8 points. It's not an insurmountable lead, but given the scandals, it's an uphill climb for the lieutenant governor.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member