NORTH CAROLINA, USA — Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson (R) will not speak or appear at former President Donald Trump's rally on Saturday in Wilmington, a source from Trump's campaign shared in an email with WFMY News 2.
This comes after a scathing CNN report was released Thursday about his alleged posts on a pornography website's message board, two people familiar with the matter said Friday.
Robinson has been present at Trump's North Carolina campaign stops. The Republican nominee has referred to Robinson as "Martin Luther King on steroids" and long praised him. However, in the wake of Thursday's CNN report, the Trump campaign issued a statement that didn't mention Robinson and spoke generally about how North Carolina was key to the campaign's efforts.
The deadline has now passed for Robinson to withdraw. His decision to keep campaigning could threaten GOP prospects in other key races, including Trump's efforts in a battleground state he has won twice.
Robinson has continuously denied writing the posts, which include racial and sexual comments.
"Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story -- those are not the words of Mark Robinson," he told supporters in a video released by his campaign.
He said wouldn't be forced out of the race by "salacious tabloid lies."
Though Robinson won his GOP gubernatorial primary in March, he's been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, NC's attorney general.
According to AP, Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments that Stein has said made him too extreme to lead NC. They already have contributed to the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson could help Vice President Kamala Harris win the state's 16 electoral votes.
Losing swing district races for a congressional seat and the General Assembly would endanger the GOP's control of the U.S. House and retain veto-proof majorities at the legislature.
Details in CNN report
CNN sent tremors through the state's political class which describes a series of comments that it said Robinson posted on the message board more than a decade ago. Individual GOP leaders raised concerns and suggested Robinson needed to fully address the allegations.
CNN reported that Robinson, who would be NC's first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a "black NAZI." CNN also reported that Robinson wrote of being aroused by a memory of "peeping" women in gym showers when he was 14 along with an appreciation of transgender pornography. Robinson at one point referred to himself as a "perv," according to CNN.
The Associated Press has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address, and his full name.
CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. It also compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.
Editor's note: The Associated Press has contributed to the following story.
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