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North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson is trailing his opponent by 17 points in the state’s gubernatorial race, according to a new poll.
Robinson faces an uphill battle as Josh Stein, North Carolina Attorney General, has 51 percent support of voters compared to the Republican’s 34 percent, the High Point University poll revealed.
Robinson, who has been rocked by public scandal in recent weeks, is also trailing Stein by double digits in two other polls released last week. The Washington Post poll puts Stein at 54 percent to Robinson’s 38 percent, while a poll from East Carolina University has the Democratic at 50 percent compared to Robinson at 33 percent.
Earlier this month, a CNN investigation accused Robinson of posting racist and sexual comments on a pornography website called Nude Africa. The investigation claimed it linked Robinson through an email address and screen name to find the comments.
The shocking comments showed the user calling themselves a “black NAZI” and asserting they would like to own slaves. Additionally, the commenter described vulgar and graphic comments about their sexual habits, according to CNN.
Robinson denies making the comments and said he has hired a law firm to investigate the matter.
But Republicans have sought to distance themselves from Robinson in the wake of the report, with Donald Trump declining to mention Robinson’s campaign despite having boosted him repeatedly over recent years, at one point calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
A dozen of Robinson’s staff members, both on campaign or within his office, have resigned.
When JD Vance was asked about the scandal on the campaign trail, he struggled to give a straight answer on whether he believed Robinson.
“I don’t not believe him, I don’t believe him — I just think that you have to let these things sometimes play out in the court of public opinion,” he told NBC News.
“The allegations are pretty far out there, of course, but I know that allegations aren’t necessarily reality,” Trump’s running mate also said. “I just think that fundamentally it’s Mark Robinson and the people of North Carolina that get to decide whether he’s their governor.”
When asked whether Vance or Trump would appear on stage with Robinson, the Ohio senator said they “don’t have any plans” to appear with him or campaign with him again.
