North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson speaks on stage on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson called himself a “black NAZI” and said “slavery is not bad” in years-old comments on an online pornographic forum, CNN reported Thursday.
Robinson, the controversial lieutenant governor of the key presidential battleground state, also posted graphic sexual content in dozens of messages on that forum with an account linked to him, according to CNN’s “KFile.”
Reached for comment, Robinson’s campaign spokesman Michael Lonergan pointed CNBC to a video, in which the Republican accuses his Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Josh Stein, of leaking the story to CNN.
“Let me reassure you, the things that you will see in that story, those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” the candidate said in the straight-to-camera statement shared on X less than an hour before the report published.
Ahead of CNN’s bombshell, Robinson was under pressure from staff and members of the Trump campaign to drop out of the race, the Carolina Journal reported, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.
Robinson in Thursday’s video signaled he would not drop out of the race in North Carolina, where the first absentee ballots are set to be sent out on Friday.
Recent polls of the race for North Carolina’s top job show Stein leading Robinson, at times by wide margins. The Democrat on Thursday launched a new “Republicans for Stein” initiative.
Robinson, who won his state’s GOP gubernatorial primary in March, has already been at the center of a series of controversies and scandals.
Among the most recent: a Sept. 3 report from North Carolina investigative outlet The Assembly, that Robinson frequented 24-hour porn shops‘ private video booths as often as five nights a week in the 1990s and early 2000s.
His campaign spokesman denied that report and lashed out at the reporters, accusing them of being “degenerates.”
Robinson has also previously been accused of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, partly due to his 2018 Facebook post that said, “This foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.”
He has denied being an antisemite.
Robinson, a staunch abortion opponent, also said during the 2024 campaign that his wife had an abortion 30 years earlier, calling it “a very difficult decision.”
The statement followed reports about Robinson’s 2019 comment that abortion “is not about protecting the lives of mothers … It is about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”
Despite those and other divisive remarks, Robinson has repeatedly garnered praise from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
In March, Trump compared Robinson to civil rights legend Martin Luther King Jr. “on steroids.”
Robinson spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in mid-July.
This is a developing story, please check back for updates.