North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor in the Tar Heel State, is staying in the race after a negative media report.
The allegations, which The Epoch Times has not independently verified, come from a CNN report detailing comments he allegedly made online before his political career began.
In the video, which was released almost a half-hour before the story was published, Robinson strongly denied the report, without going into specifics.
“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.”
Robinson accused his Democratic opponent, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, of shifting the focus from policy to “salacious tabloid trash.”
The Stein campaign said in a statement after the report that “North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor.”
Trump won North Carolina in both the 2020 and 2016 presidential elections by a little over 1 percent in 2020. Those same years, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper won the race for the governor’s office.
State law says a gubernatorial nominee can withdraw as a candidate no later than the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed. That begins on Sept. 20, so the withdrawal deadline would be late Thursday night.
A source in the local party acknowledged that the CNN story is not good for the North Carolina GOP.
Trump, who has endorsed Robinson, has praised the lieutenant governor on the campaign trail.
Robinson briefly appeared on stage with Trump at a rally in Asheboro, North Carolina, on Aug. 21. Trump said, “Mark’s gotta win,” adding that “he’s a good man.”
Trump has a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Saturday. It is unclear if Robinson will attend. The Epoch Times has reach out to the Trump campaign for comment.
