Top staffers on Mark Robinson campaign quit after reports of offensive remarks

Several top employees on Mark Robinson’s campaign to become North Carolina’s next governor have quit their posts after a media report found compelling evidence that the Republican candidate previously described himself as a black Nazi, spoke favorably of reinstating slavery and shared other disturbing thoughts on a porn message forum.

One of the resigned officials, Conrad Pogorzelski III, a senior adviser, helped Robinson win election as North Carolina’s lieutenant governor in 2020. Pogorzelski later became Robinson’s chief of staff and said that he “along with others from the campaign have left of our own accord”.

The resignations came three days after CNN reported that Robinson had apparently authored porn forum posts which expressed a preference for Adolf Hitler over the president at the time, Barack Obama. He also reportedly called Martin Luther King Jr “worse than a maggot” and said he would “certainly buy a few” enslaved people if, as he wished, slavery were reinstated.

Robinson denied that he was author of the posts and described them as “salacious tabloid lies”. He did not appear with Donald Trump at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Saturday and avoided the subject during a campaign appearance later that day at a race track in Fayetteville.

Polls show that Robinson is trailing Democratic opponent Josh Stein in polls. But in a statement on Sunday, Robinson said that the surveys have “underestimated Republican support in North Carolina for several cycles”.

“I am confident our campaign remains in a strong position to make our case to the voters and win” in the 5 November election, he added.

Stein appeared Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union and asserted that Robinson is “utterly unqualified, unfit to be the governor of North Carolina”.

Lindsey Graham, Republican US senator of South Carolina, said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press that Robinson deserves a chance to defend himself against the reporting from CNN. But Graham called Robinson “a political zombie if he does not offer a defense to this that’s credible”.

Senior state legislative leaders are concerned that any association with Robinson could affect their polling in November. Yet further up the political scale, those who on Sunday attended a rally in support of Donald Trump appeared to be unmoved, even as the former president endorsed Robinson as he pursues a return to the White House.

Bob Judson, a 70-year-old unaffiliated voter, told the Washington Post he “didn’t put much credence” in the allegations against Robinson. “We’ve all done things in our past that we’re sorry for,” Judson said. “Some of the things are crazy.”

Rose Cannon, 69, told the outlet that Robinson is a “very positive, strong man”.

“Now that this has happened, I don’t know,” Cannon said. “We’ll hear through it, and see what we think.”

While Trump has not responded to CNN’s claims about Robinson, his running mate JD Vance said it was better “to let these things play out sometimes in the court of public opinion”.

Vance is due to hold a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Monday as the Republican presidential ticket hopes to move on from the Robinson episode. On Sunday, the Ohio US senator posted a comment on social media that sought to blame inflation on Kamala Harris, the vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee, saying that was “my comment on Mark Robinson”.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.