North Carolina GOP governor nominee vows to keep running after report on racial and sexual comments
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson vowed on Thursday to remain in the race despite a CNN report that he posted strongly worded racial and sexual comments on an online message board, saying he won’t be forced out by “salacious tabloid lies.”
Robinson, the sitting lieutenant governor who decisively won his GOP gubernatorial primary in March, has been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the current attorney general.
“We are staying in this race. We are in it to win it,” Robinson said in a video posted Thursday on the social media platform X. “And we know that with your help, we will.”
Robinson referenced in the video a story that he said CNN was running, but he didn’t give details.
“Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story — those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he said. “You know my words. You know my character.”
The CNN report describes a series of racial and sexual comments Robinson posted on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago.
CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights