Four key staffers on the North Carolina gubernatorial campaign of Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson have stepped down following a bombshell report about his disturbing activity on an online pornography forum, including referring to himself as a “black NAZI.”
Robinson’s campaign announced the major shakeup on Sunday. The departing aides were identified as Conrad Pogorzelski III, general consultant and senior advisor; Chris Rodriguez, campaign manager; Heather Whillier, finance director; and Jason Rizk, deputy campaign manager.
The lieutenant governor was quoted in a campaign press release as saying he appreciated 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 endeavors.”
He added that more information about new staff roles would be announced “in the coming days.”
The mass exodus comes three days after scandal engulfed Robinson’s campaign, with CNN reporting that he had used a porn forum to defend slavery, call the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. a “commie bastard,” and detail a salacious affair with his wife’s sister.
A followup report from The Washington Post showed that he’d further used the site to praise Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as a “good read” and “a real eye opener.”
Minutes before the original report was published, Robinson released a video statement denouncing the allegations as nothing more than “salacious, tabloid trash.
“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, and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race and before.”
With the gubernatorial election a little over six weeks away, Robinson vowed to remain in the race.
He reiterated that intention in Sunday’s press release.
“My campaign will continue to focus on the substantive issues at stake in this election: building an economy that grows from Murphy to Manteo; cutting taxes and eliminating unnecessary red-tape; removing politics out of our classrooms; and cracking down on violent crime and dangerous drugs,” he said.
“Polls have consistently underestimated Republican support in North Carolina for several cycles now and with a large portion of the electorate still undecided as we continue to ramp up our efforts across the state, I am confident our campaign remains in a strong position to make our case to the voters and win on November 5.”
Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly praised Robinson in recent months, once referring to him as “Martin Luther King on steroids” and “Martin Luther King times two.” He had not publicly reacted to the CNN story as of Sunday.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ team, on the other hand, were quick to sink their teeth into the scandal, rushing out an ad in North Carolina juxtaposing Trump’s praise for Robinson with the latter’s previous incendiary remarks.
The lieutenant governor is reportedly a Holocaust denier with a long history of disparaging women, the LGBTQ+ community, Jews, Muslims, and Black people who vote Democrat.
He has compared homosexuality to pedophilia and described “transgenderism” as “filth.” He has also characterized feminism as a movement “watered by the devil” and criticized abortion and patients seeking the procedure.
“Abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers,” he says in the Harris attack ad. “It’s about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”
Robinson’s poll numbers against the Democratic candidate, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, were slumping even prior to the CNN revelations. The day prior to the report’s publication, Stein had a 13-point lead over Robinson in a Morning Consult poll. The gap is likely to be even wider this week.
Stein said Sunday that Robinson would not be on voters’ radars without the support of the former president.
“Look, Robinson exists because Donald Trump has lifted him up throughout,” he told Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union. “Mark Robinson could not exist without the support of Donald Trump.”
