Exclusive: Mark Robinson Refusing to Drop Out of N.C. Gov Race over CNN Bombshell on Alleged Porn-Site Comments

More than a year after North Carolina GOP officials and operatives began privately warning about damning opposition research on Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, high-level conversations are taking place in North Carolina Republican circles about whether the controversial candidate should drop out of this year’s gubernatorial race amid a new report from CNN involving unsavory comments Robinson allegedly made on a porn site before he was elected to statewide office. According to CNN, Robinson referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and defended slavery in porn-site comments.

Hours before the story dropped, North Carolina Republicans were already privately panicking amid reports from National Review and other outlets that the allegations could hurt his party’s chances of flipping the governor’s mansion in November.

Roughly thirty minutes before CNN published its report, the Robinson campaign shared an exclusive video statement with National Review denying the forthcoming accusations and reassuring his supporters he is staying in the race no matter what.

“You know my words, you know my character, and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race and before. Folks this race, right now, our opponents are desperate to shift the focus here from the substantive issues and focus on what you are concerned with,” Robinson said in the video, shared exclusively with NR. “We are staying in this race. We are in to win it.”

Earlier Thursday afternoon, Robinson spokesman Michael Lonergan told National Review it’s “complete fiction” that the lieutenant governor will drop out of the race.

Getting a replacement nominee would be tricky now that Robinson’s name is already on the ballot in his general-election race against Democratic attorney general Josh Stein. As Republican sources tell it, the question now is whether the North Carolina GOP should rally behind a new gubernatorial candidate who can salvage Republicans’ electoral prospects up and down the ballot in this red-leaning battleground, especially as polls continue to suggest Vice President Kamala Harris is gaining on Donald Trump in the presidential race there.

The deadline to drop out of the gubernatorial race is Thursday evening. If Robinson decides to suspend his campaign, the North Carolina GOP would pick his replacement.

Morale in North Carolina GOP circles is low. As one well-connected source put it in an interview with National Review: “The entire conservative political world in North Carolina is in a panic.”

Republican worries about Robinson’s general election viability are not new. “Those with concerns about Robinson fear his controversial views, as well as his checkered personal and campaign finance history, will alienate suburban and independent voters in 2024 as Republicans try to flip the the gubernatorial seat of term-limited Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper,” I reported in The Dispatch in June 2023.

This story has been updated.