The Republican Governors Association indicated Monday that it has no immediate plans to place more ads in North Carolina amid allegations that GOP Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson posted several inflammatory messages — including calling himself a “black Nazi” — on a porn site.
“We don’t comment on internal strategy or investment decisions, but we can confirm what’s public — our current media buy in North Carolina expires tomorrow, and no further placements have been made,” RGA Communications Director Courtney Alexander said in a statement to The Post.
“RGA remains committed to electing Republican Governors all across the country,” she added.
RGA and the group’s political action committee, RGA Right Direction PAC, have spent nearly $16 million on the North Carolina governor’s race, according to ad-tracking firm Ad Impact.
The influential GOP group’s decision is the latest blow to Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign, which was rocked by a CNN report last week on the 56-year-old lieutenant governor’s alleged posts on pornography website Nude Africa – including one in which a user with an email address linked to Robinson described himself as a “black Nazi.”
On Monday, Robinson said he’s weighing taking legal action against the network.
“We’re in talks right now, everything up to legal counsel to take CNN to task for what they have done to us. We are going after them, OK? We are going to go after them for what they’ve done,” he told reporters, according to Mediaite.
Several top Robinson campaign staffers resigned Sunday amid fallout from the disturbing posts, which were made on the website’s message board between 2008 and 2012.
Former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Robinson in the GOP primary for governor, made no mention of the lieutenant governor during a Wilmington, NC, campaign rally on Saturday.
Robinson, who has denied making the offensive posts, did not attend the event.
Like Trump, GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance avoided any mention of Robinson during a campaign stop in North Carolina on Monday. Still, several event attendees shouted Robinson’s name from the crowd when candidates for lower offices were rattled off.
“At this point, I’m still planning on voting for him, because I feel like I haven’t looked enough into it at this point,” Sommer Celmer, 47, a committed pro-life voter, told The Post at the North Carolina event.
“[T]he things that he stands on, I stand on, and I would just have to look into it more,” she said of the allegations against the lieutenant governor. “But at this point, yes, I am still planning on voting for him.
Several Republicans have called on Robinson to “do more” to rebuke the CNN report, which also alleged the GOP candidate made posts in support of bringing back slavery and admitting to “peeping” on showering women as a teenager.
“He needs to do more, in my view,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“He has a right to defend himself. He has an obligation to defend himself. This is hanging over his campaign. He’s a political zombie if he does not offer a defense to this that’s credible,” the senator added, calling Robinson “ unfit to serve” if the allegations are true.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) demanded Friday that Robinson either pursue legal action against CNN or end his bid to be the state’s governor.
“If the reporting on Mark Robinson is a total media fabrication, he needs to take immediate legal action,” Tillis wrote on X. “If the reporting is true, he owes it to President Trump and every Republican to take accountability for his actions and put the future of NC & our party before himself.”
Robinson trails North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein by 9.5 points in the race for the governor’s mansion, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls.
