Nearly all of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson's campaign staff quits after CNN ...

Published September 22, 2024 at 6:24 PM EDT

Days after a CNN report about racist and sexual comments posted on a pornography forum, all but a few of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson's campaign team quit their jobs on Sunday.

A campaign news release said that four top staffers have left the campaign: Conrad Pogorzelski, general consultant and senior advisor who's worked for Robinson since his initial 2020 lieutenant governor campaign; Chris Rodriguez, campaign manager; Heather Whillier, finance director; and Jason Rizk, deputy campaign manager.

But WUNC has confirmed that other staffers have quit as well, leaving Robinson with just three people working on his campaign — two campaign spokesmen and a bodyguard. The list of departures also include longtime director of operations Patrick Riley and political directors John Kontoulas and Jackson Lohrer.

Sunday's news release says that new staff hires will be announced "in the coming days." But hiring a new campaign team less than two months from Election Day will be tough for a campaign rocked by scandal.

The lengthy CNN report, published Thursday afternoon, highlights comments posted to an online pornography forum called "Nude Africa" from an user calling themselves Mark Robinson with many of his personal biographical details and an email address associated with the man who's now the Republican nominee for governor.

The report includes a long list of sexually explicit and racist comments posted to the site between 2008 and 2012, long before Robinson entered politics as a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2020. The commenter describes himself as a "Black Nazi," calls for the reinstatement of slavery, says he enjoys watching transgender pornography and describes a time he spied on women taking showers in a locker room.

Robinson has denied that he wrote the posts, but other Republicans have been distancing themselves from the GOP nominee for governor in recent days. President Donald Trump made no mention of Robinson during a Saturday rally in Wilmington, even as the GOP nominee for attorney general, Congressman Dan Bishop, spoke to the crowd.

Robinson thanked his departing staffers in a news release. "I appreciate the efforts of these team members who have made the difficult choice to step away from the campaign, and I wish them well in their future endeavors," Robinson said in the release. “Polls have consistently underestimated Republican support in North Carolina for several cycles now and with a large portion of the electorate still undecided as we continue to ramp up our efforts across the state, I am confident our campaign remains in a strong position to make our case to the voters and win on November 5."

Robinson's campaign website lists stops scheduled for Monday in Wilkesboro and Boone.