North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, Mark Robinson, referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” on a pornography website’s message board, according to a new CNN report about the current lieutenant governor who has already been marked by scandal and controversial comments.
According to CNN’s reporting, Robinson referred to himself as a “perv” in archived messages because he “enjoyed watching transgender pornography”. The messages were made between 2008 and 2012 on “Nude Africa”, a pornographic website that includes a message board.
He also expressed support for reinstating slavery. “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he wrote in October 2010.
In March 2012, during the Obama administration, he wrote: “I’d take Hitler over any of the shit that’s in Washington right now!”
Robinson, North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor, is facing the Democrat Josh Stein, the state attorney general, in November. Republicans have reportedly been pressuring Robinson to withdraw from the race as rumors swirled about CNN’s report on Thursday. North Carolina’s deadline for a candidate to drop out is also Thursday and the deadline to remove his name from the ballot has passed.
In a video posted to social media, Robinson accused his opponent of leaking the story to CNN and vehemently denied making the comments.
“You know my words. You know my character,” Robinson said. “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, to salacious tabloid trash. We cannot allow that to happen.”
Robinson likened the story to the “high-tech lynching” of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas during contentious confirmation hearings three decades ago. “We’re not going to let them do that. We are staying in this race. We’re in it to win it,” he said.
Late on Thursday, the North Carolina Republican Party stood by Robinson, saying Democrats were resorting to a smear campaign because they were losing on policy.
“Mark Robinson has categorically denied the allegations made by CNN but that won’t stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks,” the party said in a statement.
At least one North Carolina Republican, US Representative Richard Hudson, called CNN’s reporting “very concerning” and said he thought Robinson needed to do more to reassure voters the allegations were untrue.
CNN’s story details decades-long links between the “minisoldr” identity on chat boards and email addresses known to be Robinson’s.
Because Republicans already control North Carolina’s legislature, a Robinson victory would give them a trifecta and unilateral control over policymaking in a critical battleground state.
Robinson has a history of controversial statements. He has described Covid-19 as a “globalist” conspiracy to destroy Donald Trump. In 2021, he referred to transgender and homosexual people as “filth”. He has also said people who are gay are equivalent to “what the cows leave behind” as well as “maggots” and “flies”.
Robinson has not led in a poll since June. A recent Emerson College poll put Robinson behind by eight points.
North Carolina is a critical swing state in the presidential election. Carolina Journal, a conservative policy magazine in North Carolina, reported today that the Trump campaign had asked Robinson to leave the race, and would no longer allow Robinson to appear on stage with the former president. Trump gave Robinson his full-throated endorsement in March, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids”.
The CNN piece quoted Robinson denigrating King in obscene, racist terms in posts from 2011, calling him a “commie bastard”, “worse than a maggot”, a “ho fucking, phony”, and a “huckster”.
“I’m not in the KKK. They don’t let blacks join,” Robinson posted, according to CNN. “If I was in the KKK I would have called him Martin Lucifer Koon!”
