Mark Robinson, the disgraced anti-LGBTQ+ Republican, sees mass exit of staff following scandal

Several high-ranking campaign staffers for Mark Robinson, the disgraced and anti-LGBTQ+ Republican nominee for North Carolina governor, have left after additional controversial comments by Robinson surfaced last week.

A CNN investigation found remarks Robinson made on an adult entertainment website years ago, describing himself as a “Black Nazi,” expressing support for slavery, and saying he liked porn featuring trans people (though he has repeatedly made transphobic comments). “I like watching [transgender slur] on girl porn! That’s fucking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” he wrote in one comment verified by CNN. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!” He also admitted to “peeping” on women in public gym showers as a teenager.

Now Conrad Pogorzelski III, general consultant and senior adviser for Robinson’s campaign; Chris Rodriguez, campaign manager; Heather Whillier, finance director; and Jason Rizk, deputy campaign manager, have all resigned, Robinson’s campaign office announced Sunday.

“The reports are true that I, along with others from the campaign, have left of our own accord,” Pogorzelski told CNN. He went on to name others who have exited: Caroline Winchester, deputy finance director; John Kontoulas and Jackson Lohrer, both political directors; and Patrick Riley, director of operations.

Robinson has denied making the comments, even though his full name was on them on the website in question, Nude Africa, and his username was one he had used on other sites. “This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not anything that is characteristic of me,” Robinson told CNN last week. He added, “I’m not going to get into the minutia of how somebody manufactured this, these salacious tabloid lies.”

It wasn’t as if Robinson, currently the North Carolina lieutenant governor, hadn’t taken horrific stances previously. He is a homophobe and transphobe who has called LGBTQ+ people “filth.” He is an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. He has called abortion “genocide,” even though he admitted his wife had the procedure before they were married, and made many misogynist comments.

“Abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers, it is about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down,” he said in 2019.

He has drawn the admiration of Donald Trump, who has referred to him as “Martin Luther King on steroids.” But Trump held a rally Saturday in Wilmington, N.C., where Robinson wasn’t invited and wasn’t mentioned.

Robinson was campaigning Monday and resisting pressure for him to leave the race. He is running for governor against Democrat Josh Stein, currently the state’s attorney general. The incumbent governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, is term-limited. North Carolina elects its governor and lieutenant governor separately, unlike many states.