Despite losing his state’s gubernatorial race by a landslide, North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson isn’t ready to acknowledge his campaign’s shortcomings.
In his closing remarks Tuesday night, Robinson claimed that he was satisfied with his run for the highest seat in the state’s executive branch since he “ran a race where I did not have to lie.” But that, in and of itself, appears to be a lie.
The 56-year-old self-described Nazi was caught red-handed in October when CNN published a sprawling investigation about his pre-politics proclivities, connecting Robinson to a flurry of comments on online pornographic forums via a “litany” of common biographical details and a shared email address. The comments revealed Robinson as a man who had, at least once, desired to own slaves, peeped in women’s locker rooms, and enjoyed transgender porn.
But the kicker that eventually led to a mass exodus of his top staffers came when Robinson rejected legal aid as well as several external offers to help him track down the original source of the comments, instead opting to vehemently claim—without evidence—that the CNN report was incorrect.
Weeks later, at a sparsely attended news conference, Robinson and his attorney Jesse Binnall announced their intention to sue the “left-wing” news outlet for defamation, seeking $50 million in damages for “reputational harm” over what he described as a “high-tech lynching.” But weeks later, Robinson quietly tweaked that number, amending the lawsuit to instead seek just over $25,000 in damages.
Even Donald Trump’s campaign had seemingly pulled their support from Robinson, reportedly telling the Hitler-quoting, gay-bashing, conspiracy-flouting antisemite that he was no longer welcome to attend rallies for either candidate on the Republican presidential ticket, according to an anonymous source that spoke with the Carolina Journal in September. Local Republican strategists had also reportedly called on Robinson to exit the gubernatorial race in order to save Trump’s chances in the battleground state.
