MAGA extremist Mark Robinson may drop out of governor race due to trans porn allegations

Note: This story has been updated below with a denial from Robinson.

Rumors have been spreading today that Republican North Carolina gubernatorial candidate and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson – known for his bombastically extreme anti-LGBTQ+ statements – is dropping out of the 2024 gubernatorial election less than 50 days before Election Day because a CNN story with numerous new accusations is about to be published.

Those accusations include him allegedly peeping in women’s locker rooms when he was a student at North Carolina A&T State University, saying he wanted to own slaves, and saying in online forums that he enjoyed pornography featuring transgender models, according to North Carolina journalist Bryan Anderson.

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He also considers LGBTQ+ people as “filthy” “demons” who “mentally rape” children.

Robinson’s campaign canceled several appearances today, Fox News reported earlier today. He was supposed to do a campaign event with vice presidential candidate and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), but Robinson’s campaign said that he had COVID.

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The Carolina Journal reported earlier today that unnamed sources told them that Robinson is being pressured by campaign staff and the Trump-Vance campaign to drop out of the election due to a scandal “that involves activity on adult websites in the 2000s.” The paper notes that today is the last day candidates are allowed to withdraw from the election under North Carolina law but that it’s too late for his name to not appear on ballots.

“Whomever your sources are here, it is complete fiction,” Robinson’s communications director told The Carolina Journal.

Robinson, over the past several years, has branded himself as a Christian conservative extremist, denouncing LGBTQ+ people’s existence in vivid – and often vulgar – terms.

Among his many anti-LGBTQ+ statements, he has called homosexuality “an abominable sin,” has compared LGBTQ+ people to cow dung and Satanic demons, and said trans people should defecate on public street corners outside rather than using bathrooms matching their gender identity.

He admonished women for not remaining chaste, made racist remarks against Black women, and denied the Holocaust.

Earlier this month, Robinson was accused of being a regular patron at a porn shop in his state when he was younger, visiting one up to five times a week.

Louis Money, a man who worked in a Greensboro porn shop, was one of six men who claimed that Robinson regularly patronized pornographic video stores two decades ago. Money claimed that Robinson regularly purchased bootleg pornographic video tapes from him for $25 each.

“We developed a friendship,” Money told WRAL. “He would bring pizza every night and he’d hang out for a few hours…. Many people remember him. I’m not the only one.”

Robinson’s campaign denied the accusation.

Robinson, who now calls for abortion to be banned, once helped his now-wife get an abortion.

The Trump-Vance campaign’s interest in Robinson dropping out could be explained by worries that his unpopularity in the swing state could reduce turnout for Donald Trump in a “reverse coattails” situation where the downticket race affects the presidential race.

“Trump is being weighed down by a very unpopular Republican candidate for governor,” Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff, said on August 17. “So Trump is going to have some difficulty in this state, in North Carolina, that he may not have in others.”

Update: Robinson released a video on social media denying the allegations and saying that he will not drop out of the race.

“The news media is at it again,” he said. “And my opponent is at it again.”

“Now a story leaked by [Democrat Josh Stein] to CNN is appearing now,” he said. “The things that you will see in that story, those are not the words of Mark Robinson.”

Robinson says he stays in the race https://t.co/JbIoLWZ00m pic.twitter.com/DypWXpgEe9

— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) September 19, 2024

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