Robinson will not appear at Trump’s North Carolina rally after report on alleged online comments

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson will not speak or appear at former President Donald Trump ‘s rally on Saturday in the eastern part of his state following a CNN report about his alleged posts on a pornography website’s message board, two people familiar with the matter said Friday.

Robinson is not expected to attend the event in Wilmington, according to a person on the Trump campaign and a second person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.

Robinson has been a frequent presence at Trump’s North Carolina campaign stops. The Republican nominee has referred to Robinson, who is Black, as “Martin Luther King on steroids” and long praised him. But in the wake of Thursday’s CNN report, the Trump campaign issued a statement that didn’t mention Robinson and instead spoke generally about how North Carolina was key to the campaign’s efforts.

With the deadline now passed for him to withdraw, Robinson remained the Republican candidate for governor on Friday. His decision to keep campaigning could threaten GOP prospects in other key races, including Trump’s efforts in a battleground state he twice won.

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Robinson has denied writing the posts, which include racial and sexual comments. He said wouldn’t be forced out of the race by “salacious tabloid lies.” While Robinson won his GOP gubernatorial primary in March, he’s been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general.

“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. “You know my words. You know my character.”

State law says a gubernatorial nominee had until Thursday night to withdraw as a candidate, the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed. The State Board of Elections is unaware of any such withdrawal notice, spokesperson Pat Gannon said. State Republican leaders could have picked a replacement had a withdrawal occurred.

“We are staying in this race,” Robinson said in the video. “We are in it to win it.”

Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments that Stein has said made him too extreme to lead North Carolina. They already have contributed to the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson could help Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris win the state’s 16 electoral votes.

“The fallout is going to be huge,” Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, said Friday.

Losing swing district races for a congressional seat and the General Assembly would endanger the GOP’s control of the U.S. House and retaining veto-proof majorities at the legislature.

CNN, which describes a series of comments that it said Robinson posted on the message board more than a decade ago, sent tremors through the state’s political class. While the state Republican Party came to Robinson’s defense, individual GOP leaders raised concerns and suggested Robinson needed to address the allegations more fully.

CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’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.

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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.

The state GOP said in a statement late Thursday that while Robinson has “categorically denied the allegations” it wouldn’t “stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.”

But U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who endorsed a Robinson rival in the primary — citing Robinson’s lack of legislative and business experience — said on X that Thursday “was a tough day, but we must stay focused on the races we can win.”

“If Harris takes NC, she takes the White House,” he added. “We can’t let that happen.”

Democrats jumped on Robinson and other Republicans after the report aired, using every opportunity to show on social media photos of Robinson with Trump or with other GOP candidates attempting to tarnish them by association.

Stein and his allies have highlighted past comments by Robinson, such as a Facebook post from 2019 in which Robinson said abortion in America was about “killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.” And there’s a 2021 speech by Robinson in a church in which he used the word “filth” when discussing gay and transgender people.

Robinson, 56, was elected lieutenant governor in his first bid for public office in 2020. He tells a life story of childhood poverty, jobs that he blames the North American Free Trade Agreement for ending, and personal bankruptcy.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, a top surrogate for Harris, said late Thursday on X that Trump and state GOP leaders “embraced Mark Robinson for years knowing who he was and what he stood for ... They reap what they sow.”

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Price reported from New York.