Embattled North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson is reportedly down to just a single-digit number of paid campaign staffers after the bulk of his team abandoned his bid for the governor’s office in the wake of a damaging CNN investigation.
Robinson was the focus of an investigation by the network’s KFile unit on Thursday. A report published by CNN revealed an extensive history of comments made on a porn site called “Nude Africa” under an email address and username both known to be linked to him.
The comments, which touched on a wide range of topics, were outrageous and shocking — in one, he apparently referred to himself as a “Black Nazi.”
Though Robinson posted a video message on Thursday denying making the comments, he has faced calls from his fellow Republicans to prove that CNN defamed him with false information or drop out of the race.
And over the weekend, his problems multiplied. A statement from the Robinson campaign Sunday afternoon indicated that his entire senior staff had resigned.
WUNC further reported that the resignations were much deeper than the statement admitted. According to the news outlet, just three paid staffers remain employed by the Robinson campaign as of Sunday evening.
Robinson has denied that he would drop out of the race and accused Democrats of manufacturing the allegations.
But conservative operatives tuned into the race reacted to the news not with surprise but with resignation this past week as many seemed to indicate that the lion’s share of the accusations had been circulating in private for months.
He “has long been toast,” Doug Heye, a longtime Republican operative from North Carolina, told The Independent on Thursday via text message. He noted how the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign, was “very nervous about how [the story] impacts him.”
The extent of Robinson’s reported comments was shocking by itself. Aside from his comments about racial demographics, which are reportedly quite extensive in their own right, the North Carolina Republican opined about loving porn involving transgender Americans, despite publicly being an opponent of transgender rights and same-sex marriage.
There were also comments made by the Robinson-linked account describing the poster’s own sexual tendencies and even claiming a sexual relationship with his wife’s sister. Beyond that, the poster alleged to have spied on women and girls changing in a locker room without their knowledge or consent.
Publication of CNN’s investigation was a nightmare scenario for Robinson, who was already trailing his opponent Josh Stein in the North Carolina gubernatorial race by the high single digits, according to most polling.
Now, Trump’s campaign (which had endorsed him) is publicly backing away from him at the worst possible time; Trump himself did not invite Robinson to a rally in the state on Saturday, with reports indicating that his campaign knew the story was coming.
North Carolina is a key battleground state in the presidential race as well that Trump won by less than two percentage points in 2020. Kamala Harris, who took over the top of the Democratic ticket in July, has shrunk her opponent’s lead to a similar margin in available polling since entering the race.