North Carolina’s Republican nominee for governor has already lost most of his campaign staff after a news report linked him to disturbing comments on a porn site.
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Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson in Asheville, N.C., in August. He has faced staff resignations this week.
Senior staff members in the office of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina have said they will resign on Oct. 1, becoming the latest people to abandon Mr. Robinson, the state’s Republican nominee for governor, in the wake of a CNN report that linked him to disturbing comments on a porn site.
Those resigning include Brian LiVecchi, the chief of staff and general counsel; Jonathan Harris, the policy director; John Wesley Waugh, the director of communications; and Nathan Lewis, the director of government affairs. Mr. LiVecchi confirmed the resignations in a brief phone call on Wednesday afternoon.
On Sunday, most of the senior employees of Mr. Robinson’s campaign for governor also resigned.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Robinson told other Republicans around the state in a virtual meeting that he had hired Matt Hurley to be his new campaign manager, according to two people briefed on the decision who were not authorized to speak publicly. Mr. Hurley is also a senior political strategist at Southeastern Strategies. He has repeatedly advocated for Mr. Robinson on X.
Mr. Hurley told county chairs in the meeting that he had previously worked on Mr. Robinson’s team and that he would be announcing new staff hires soon.
The Republican Governors Association said earlier this week that it had not made any new ad buys in North Carolina since the CNN report was published on Thursday. Mr. Robinson has denied that he wrote the offensive posts, but some of his conservative allies have asked him to either provide evidence or leave the race.
According to the CNN report, Mr. Robinson wrote on a porn site years ago that he was a “black NAZI,” that he enjoyed watching transgender pornography and that slavery was not bad. He also recounted on the site how he went “peeping” on women in public gym showers as a teenager.
Mr. Robinson said on Tuesday that he had hired a lawyer, Jesse Binnall, to “investigate where and how these false smears originated.”
On Monday, he hit the campaign trail, striking a defiant tone in speeches to his faithful supporters. He criticized news organizations for reporting on his comments instead of other issues. And he insisted that he would remain in the race and defeat his Democratic opponent, Josh Stein, the attorney general of North Carolina.
The latest poll, from Elon University, had Mr. Stein leading Mr. Robinson by 14 points. The governor’s race had been expected to be one of the most tightly contested in the country.
Mr. Robinson was elected lieutenant governor in 2020, two years after a video of him speaking out against gun control in Greensboro, N.C., went viral, launching his political career.
Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C. More about Eduardo Medina
See more on: Mark Robinson, 2024 Elections: News, Polls and Analysis, Republican Party, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance
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Source: nytimes.com
