RALEIGH, N.C. — Mark Robinson returned to the campaign trail Monday in North Carolina, insisting that he will remain in the governor’s race even after most of his staff resigned following a CNN report linking him to numerous disturbing comments on a pornographic website.

Wearing his signature bright red shirt and jeans, Robinson, the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, stood outside a bakery in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, and denounced the CNN article. Among other things, it said that Robinson had written on a porn site years ago that he was a “black NAZI,” that he enjoyed watching transgender pornography and that “slavery is not bad.”

Former President Donald Trump did not mention Robinson once at a campaign event in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Saturday, and several Trump fans who attended said they understood why it was necessary to distance Trump from Robinson. The former president endorsed Robinson in March and held a fundraiser for him at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, last year.

Related Story: Trump’s Impulse After Robinson Bombshell Report: Ignore, and Power Through

Robinson’s Fallout Gets Worse

The fallout worsened Sunday when most of Robinson’s top campaign staff members resigned, leaving the lieutenant governor with a thin team as he attempts to continue a campaign that had already been plagued by poor polling. Robinson’s Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Stein, had been pounding him with negative ads, and he had already been under scrutiny for past Facebook posts and speeches widely criticized as racist, antisemitic and transphobic.

Robinson has not yet announced new hires, though he has suggested he will be making some soon.

On Monday morning, as he spoke to a crowd outside the bakery, he held up a red sign in the shape of the state of North Carolina, with his name in large font. He promised to “take CNN to task for what they have done to us.”

He is scheduled to speak at another event Monday afternoon in Boone, North Carolina.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Eduardo Medina/Doug Mills
c. 2024 The New York Times Company