Staff for ‘black Nazi’ candidate quit as fallout over porn posts continues

Raleigh, North Carolina: Several top staffers in Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson’s campaign for governor have quit their posts, marking more fallout from a US broadcaster CNN report outlining evidence that he made disturbing posts on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago.

Those posts included Robinson referring to himself as a “black NAZI”, among other items.

The campaign said in a news release that senior adviser Conrad Pogorzelski III, campaign manager Chris Rodriguez, the campaign’s finance director and a deputy campaign manager “have stepped down from their roles with the campaign”.

Republican Mark Robinson speaking on the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.Credit: AP

“I appreciate the efforts of these team members who have made the difficult choice to step away from the campaign, and I wish them well in their future endeavours,” Robinson said in the release.

Pogorzelski, who helped Robinson get elected lieutenant governor in 2020 in his first bid for public office and later became his chief of staff, said separately on Sunday that additional staffers also left the campaign, including the deputy finance director, two political directors and the director of operations.

Pogorzelski, in a text, said that he “along with others from the campaign have left of our own accord”.

The CNN report on Thursday unearthed posts it said Robinson left on a porn site’s message boards in which he referred to himself as a “black NAZI”, said he enjoyed transgender pornography, said in 2012 he preferred Hitler to then-president Barack Obama, and slammed the late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr as “worse than a maggot”.

Robinson denied writing the posts and said that he wouldn’t be forced out of the race by “salacious tabloid lies”. He avoided directly discussing the controversy during a gubernatorial campaign event on Saturday evening at a racetrack in Fayetteville. That occurred after former president Donald Trump didn’t mention Robinson at a rally earlier in the day about 145 kilometres away in Wilmington.

Before Saturday, Robinson had been a frequent presence at Trump’s North Carolina campaign stops. The Republican presidential nominee has long praised Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first black governor if elected, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids” for his speaking style.

On Sunday, Robinson still expressed optimism that he could win in November over Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the sitting attorney general. Polls have shown Robinson trailing Stein.

But Robinson said polls have “underestimated Republican support in North Carolina for several cycles”.

Robinson has a long history of making inflammatory comments, including suggesting women who sought abortion “weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down” and comparing abortion to slavery.

Stein said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Robinson is “utterly unqualified, unfit to be the governor of North Carolina, and we’re going to do everything in our power to keep that from happening.”

Polls show Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris locked in a close race in North Carolina and nationally. Democrats have seized on the opportunity to highlight Trump’s ties to Robinson, with billboards showing the two together and a new ad from Harris’ campaign highlighting the Republican candidates’ ties, as well as Robinson’s support for a statewide abortion ban without exceptions.

On Sunday, Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, said on NBC’s Meet the Press that Robinson deserves a chance to defend himself against the allegations, which Graham described as “unnerving.” He said Robinson is “a political zombie if he does not offer a defence to this that’s credible,” while arguing the issue wouldn’t hurt Trump.

“If they’re true, he’s unfit to serve for office,” Graham said of Robinson and the claims in the CNN report. “If they’re not true, he has the best lawsuit in the history of the country for libel.”

AP

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.