A Republican gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina has insisted he will not drop out of the race after it was reported he made controversial comments on a pornographic website more than a decade ago.
Mark Robinson has described the CNN report, and allegations that he had referred to himself as a “black Nazi” at a seniors’ forum, as a “blue-green lie”.
He has been under pressure from state Republicans and members of Donald Trump’s campaign team to drop out of the swing state race, according to anonymous sources cited by the Carolina Journal.
Trump himself did not refer to the report when he made comments at a Thursday night event in Washington about anti-Semitism.
Robinson, 56, is a former furniture manufacturer who was elected to be the first black lieutenant governor in 2020.
He won the nomination to run for governor in March after receiving the endorsement of Trump, who called him “Martin Luther King on steroids”.
Robinson’s race is in a potentially high-impact situation as Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris hopes to defect from Republicans.
According to a CNN report published on Thursday, Robinson used to visit a sex website from 2008-12 called Nude Africa, with the name “minisoldr”.
According to CNN, minisoldr posted about enjoying watching “tranny” porn, adding: “Yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”
The BBC did not confirm the CNN report.
In 2021, Robinson refused to apologize after being criticized that children in schools should not learn about “transgenderism, homosexuality, or any filth”.
In a video posted to X, previously on Twitter, on Thursday, when the CNN story was published, he denied wrongdoing.
“Let me assure you, the things you will see in that story are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he said.
“We are still in this race. We are on the verge of winning it.”
He said he was the victim of a “high-tech rape” by his white Democratic rival, Josh Stein.
Stein’s campaign said in a statement that “North Carolinians already know that Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be governor”.
Opinion polls already suggest that Stein, a Harvard-educated lawyer who is currently North Carolina’s attorney general, has a strong lead in the race.
The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement, saying the “left” was “trying to demonize him by attacking him personally”.
Trump himself did not address the controversy during Thursday night’s remarks at the Israel-American Council National Summit, where he vowed to “stop the poisonous poison of opposition from spreading across America and around the world”.
He lamented the lack of support he said he received from Jewish voters, and said that if he fails to win the election, “the Jews will have more of that”.
Harris’ campaign posted a video on social media reminding voters of Trump’s endorsement of Robinson.
The deadline to withdraw from the gubernatorial contest was Thursday evening, with postal ballots going into the mail on Friday. Early voting in the state begins in less than a month.
Recent polls in North Carolina show Harris and Trump effectively tied among likely voters.
The Tar Heel State has been a Republican stronghold, and only one Democratic presidential nominee has won there in 20-plus years.
Trump beat Joe Biden in North Carolina four years ago by less than 2%.
Democrats campaigned heavily in the state this election season.
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